Departure
by BeyondTheSea13
Summary: Myka doesn't know if the other reality she's looking into is her future. She doesn't know if she wants it to be. Most of all, she doesn't know why her grasp on the present keeps slipping. Previously titled About the Future.
1. Chapter 1

It's late when the car drops you off at your building. You know something is wrong before you've even closed the door behind you. The apartment is silent, but you can feel eyes on you. You draw your sidearm.

"Ms. Bering."

You twist toward the kitchen, gun raised. You can make out the outline of a woman, as tall as you are and wearing a long coat, standing in front of your refrigerator.

"I'm an agent of the Secret Service. Put your hands up," you demand, but the woman doesn't move.

"My name's Frederic," she says instead. She takes a step toward you.

"Stay where you are," you demand. "I'm armed."

"I'm with the government," she tells you as she takes another step. "I'm here on a matter of national security."

You hear rustling behind you. You spin around in place, gun still pointed, and find yourself face to chest with a large bald man in a suit. He holds a file out to you.

"Is this about the gala?" you ask, making no move to reach for it. "Show me your badge." You eye the file. "What is it?"

"It's an invitation to endless wonder," the woman—Frederic—says, but there is no humor in her voice.

"What?" you ask. "This doesn't make any sen—"

"Take it," Frederic tells you. She sounds entirely unamused. If anything, she seems impatient, like maybe this isn't her first encounter of this sort recently. "Read it."

You reach out and take the file without lowering your weapon.

"Please note the action code. It is legitimate. You're part of my bailiwick now."

You study the code, periodically glancing up at the man on whom your weapon is still trained.

Finally, you holster your gun and turn back towards Frederic. "I'm sorry, I've never heard of you before, and you're telling me, what? That you're my new boss?"

"Precisely," Frederic answers.

"Is this…" you trail off, trying to gather your thoughts. "Is this a promotion?"

"You're to be in South Dakota at those coordinates at noon tomorrow. You are to mention our meeting and your pending assignment to no one. Is that understood?"

"South Dakota," you repeat. "What?"

"Pack light, Ms. Bering," Frederic says. You can hear the fabric of her coat rustling as she moves toward the door. "We'll ship what you need and store the rest."

"But wait!" you call. "What's in South Dakota?"

The door slams shut before you finish the question.

You feel something light and wet on the bridge of your nose. You hear a child's laugh. There's an image of a young girl with close-cropped curly, brown hair wearing a yellow sundress behind your eyes, almost like a memory. She's clutching a blue bottle of bubble soap in one hand and a bubble wand with three circles in the other. She's looking up at you, laughing. She dips the wand into the bottle and blows. The bubbles pop against your face. One of them sits on your nose until the little girl reaches out and pops it herself. You hear yourself laugh.

You blink and she's gone. A childhood memory, you think. One that you'd forgotten until now. You're sure your hair has never been that short, but you know that memories aren't always completely accurate.

* * *

Pete grows on you. He's annoying and childish, but in an endearing way, in a way that reminds you of a brother you never had. Once you start thinking of him less like a colleague and more like family, it feels right.

Leena is an unknown, but you trust her almost immediately. She drifts through the Warehouse like a childhood home, and you know nothing about who she was before she got here. She is one of the kindest people you have ever met. Her presence alone is comforting. You find yourself wondering how anywhere ever felt like home without her.

Claudia grows on you too. She takes you from thinking that hiring her was the most ill-advised decision you've ever seen Artie make to confidently placing your life in her hands in the space of a month. She's brilliant and sarcastic and so young. She reminds you of someone, but you can't place who.

You're up late one night, leaning against the counter, drinking a cup of coffee, and watching Claudia take apart the oven. She's muttering to herself. You don't understand any of the words she's using. Your expertise is in the language of Shakespeare and Milton and Hawthorne, not technical jargon.

"Does Leena know about this?" you'd asked as you fished your favorite mug out of the cupboard.

"Of course," Claudia had answered, her voice echoing slightly from inside of oven. "I mean, I didn't ask her, but Leena knows everything that goes on around here, right?"

Something inside the oven clangs. You jump and nearly spill your coffee. Claudia swears.

"Everything okay in there?"

"Oh yeah, everything's just great," Claudia mutters. "I didn't need my head anyway."

You snicker as Claudia pulls herself out of the oven, one hand clenched against her forehead. She shoots you a dirty look.

If Pete is an annoying older brother and Leena is a comforting if soft-spoken older sister, Claudia is the younger sister who upstages you at every opportunity. She would remind you of Tracey if she wasn't so likeable. She never makes you feel less important because she's good at things that you aren't.

"Why are you drinking coffee so late at night anyway?" she asks. "Isn't Pete already asleep?"

You shrug. "Caffeine doesn't bother me."

"You're building up a tolerance," Claudia says. "You should be careful about that."

You take another sip. You've been drinking five cups a day since college. The damage is probably done.

You feel a tug on your pant leg. When you look down, a little girl is staring up at you with dark brown eyes so wide you feel like you could fall into them. She points at the cup in your hand.

"I want some."

"No," you hear yourself tell her, though it doesn't really feel like you saying it. "You wouldn't like this. It's bitter. Mama's in the kitchen. Why don't you go ask her to make you some hot chocolate?"

"Myka?"

When you look back up, Claudia is furrowing her brow at you, head cocked slightly to the side. "You drift off on me?"

You shake your head. "Yes, I… I must have. Sorry."

"It's the coffee," Claudia says, nodding at the mug in your hand. "I'm telling you, the stuff's not good for you. My Bubbe used to say that. Or, well, my mom told me she did. And she was right."

"Well, my mom said I should do whatever it takes to get through the day," you answer, but you pour the rest of your mug in the sink, because you really should think about going to bed soon anyway.

Claudia whistles. "Your mom sounds like she was a teacher."

* * *

"You're back," Rebecca says as she pulls the door open. You're in St. Louis with Pete, investigating some sort of device that attaches itself to people's backs, and you know this woman is hiding something.

"How long do you suppose this will take?" she asks you. "I have a call with a friend in Oregon at six. We don't get to talk much."

"Oregon, wow," Pete answers. He turns to Myka. "You know, I haven't talked to any of my old friends since we moved to—" He breaks off, and his eyes flash toward Rebecca. "To our current post. Not sure Mykes, here, had any friends to lose touch with."

"Yes, well, Louise and I had a rather harrowing experience while we were camping together in Montana. Oh, must have been… 1964, '65?" Rebecca explains. "Cookies?"

"Yes please," Pete calls at her back as she shuffles toward the kitchen.

"We were stranded in the wilderness for several days," Rebecca continues. "Thought we might die. That kind of experience bonds two people for life."

Pete is hugging you tighter than you can remember ever being hugged by anyone. "I'm going to miss you, Mykes."

"I'll miss you too," you tell him. You can feel your throat closing, unshed tears burning your eyelids. You hate crying in front of other people, but you think this can be an exception.

"This will be good for you," he tells you as he pulls away. His eyes are red-rimmed. "The move, not the other thing. Aurora will be better for you then Univille, given your… situation. Maybe you won't feel so much like you have to hide."

You nod. "Maybe."

You know, instinctively, that he's right, but you can't bring yourself to feel happy about it.

He sighs and steps toward you again, pulls you into another hug.

"God, I know this has got to be harder for you than it is for me," he tells you, "but I can't believe you won't be here anymore."

"Let's take a seat, shall we?" Rebecca asks. Pete touches your arm has he starts toward the living room and you jump.

"Ms. St. Clair, we think there's something you're not telling us," you say, forcing yourself back to the present.

Rebecca looks more amused than threatened. She's still smiling at you pleasantly. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You asked if there were any more electrocutions," you reply. "What exactly did you mean by that?"

"I heard it on the news," she answers, as if she's offended by the suggestion that she might have gotten the information anywhere else.

"No." You narrow your eyes at her. "It was never mentioned in the news."

"Ma'am," Pete cuts in. "You know more than you're saying."

There is a long pause where Rebecca seems to be considering something. She nods almost imperceptibly, and then she speaks again. "Okay, let's cut to the chase, shall we?"

You and Pete exchange confused glances as you wait for her to continue.

"The unexplained electrocution raised a flag. You found Jack, and you finally figured out there was an artifact. You're from South Dakota, right?"

Pete takes a deep breath and leans back in his chair.

Of course, she was a Warehouse agent.

You bet she wasn't even really camping in Montana.

* * *

The first thing Pete asks you after you resuscitate him is if you're okay. You're about to cry, but you're beaming.

"Yeah, I'm okay."

He struggles to sit up. You rush to help him.

"Remind me…" he pants, "never to die… again."

"Okay." You nod enthusiastically.

"You get it?" he calls over his shoulder at Rebecca.

"I got it," she answers.

He turns back to Myka. "She's a pretty good agent for someone who's fifty years out of practice. Makes you wonder what the Warehouse could have accomplished if she'd stuck around." He takes a couple of deep breaths. "Give me a minute."

"Sure, sure." You rock back on your heels to give him space.

"Don't ever get whammied," Pete tells you. "Not fun."

"Oh, you haven't really become a Warehouse agent until you've nearly been killed by an artifact," Rebecca calls. "It's coming. Don't you worry."

"Those were some impressive pitches. I thought wrestling was your sport."

Pete is walking toward you, tossing a softball from one hand to the other. A young girl with curly brown hair pulled into a messy ponytail is running ahead of him.

"Well, I guess you could call me a jack of all sports," Pete says. You smile and sock him on the arm. He jumps back.

"Hey, hey, okay! I might have had a little help from Jack Pfiester's glove."

"Pitches unhittable balls?" Myka raises an eyebrow at him. "Did you really need that against a seven-year-old?"

"But I wasn't showing her how to hit, was I?" He waggles his eyebrows at you. "I was showing her how to pitch. Great thing about being the guy in charge is no one yells at you when you borrow artifacts."

You roll your eyes. "You're setting a bad example for the agents."

"Nah," he waves you off. "Steve will set them straight. Guy never was any fun. Now come on." He looks down at the little girl. "Mom's probably getting worried."

You cross your arms. "I'm Mom."

"Mother then." He taps your arm with the glove. "Come on, let's get going."

"Okay." He holds his hand out to you. You're back on the ground in the generator room, feeling as disoriented as he looks. "Help me up."

* * *

You didn't think you'd be back in Colorado so soon. When they pulled you out of Denver to go to D.C., you thought you were leaving this life behind for good.

"Look at those mountains, Mykes," Pete says as you're driving reluctantly toward the house where you grew up. He hasn't looked away from the window since you pulled out of the rental lot. "You could go camping up there every weekend. The hiking must be great. How could you not love living here?"

You don't tell him about how camping was something your father always thought he'd do with his son, and the fact that you would have jumped at the chance to go was never any consolation for that. If anything, it was the opposite.

You park along the curb outside the shop, and suddenly you're crying. Hard, violent sobs that wrack your entire body. You don't know why, but you know that you feel hurt and hopeless and angry. Angry that them, but also at yourself for ever believing this would turn out okay.

Your forehead is resting against the steering wheel, and you're clutching it with both hands, so hard your knuckles are white. Your cheeks feel raw. You're breathless.

When you glance back toward the shop, Pete is gone, but you can see your mother on the second floor, peering out at you through the living room window.

You spot your phone in the CD holder. It's black and rectangular with no keypad, and you've never seen it before, but you know that it's yours. You know how to unlock it. You didn't know phones could be locked. You reach for it, your hand shaking.

"Mykes?"

Pete is jostling your shoulder. "You ready?"

You jump and snap your head towards him. Your cheeks are dry and you no longer have the achy sinuses and stale taste in your mouth that comes with really crying.

"Come on." He jerks his head toward the shop. He reaches over and unbuckles your seat belt. "It's a long flight from Portland. I bet your mom will make us some more of those wings."

You sigh as you push the car door open.

When you reach for the door of the shop, Pete stops you with a hand on your arm.

"You okay? You seem a little out of it?"

"Yeah." You nod. "Fine. Just a little stressed out."

"Look, I know being here is hard for you," he says. "We'll be back at the Warehouse soon."

Sometimes it surprises you what a good guy he can be. It surprises you that you're actually glad he's here, despite the fact that your mother will probably ask you about him every time you talk to her now, and you'll have to keep inventing reasons you're not together because "We're just friends," and "He's like a brother," and "I like him, but not like that" will just never be good enough for her.

* * *

You've never felt number than you do for the twelve minutes you think Artie is dead. When Sam died, there was another objective. You reminded yourself that what he died for was more important than one person's life, and you focused on the job. You didn't process it until afterward.

In those twelve minutes, surrounded by electrical fires and steel beams falling all around you, your only thought is finding Artie. You don't feel anything.

The walls around you are white, covered in photographs of lakes and mountains that are probably meant to invoke an aura of serenity. They don't make you feel serene. They just make you feel trapped.

You can hear the sharp, rasping breaths of a person crying. There is a woman with long, greying brown hair in the chair beside you. Her face is buried in her right hand. Her left hand is gripping yours so hard it aches. You can feel the metal of the band around her ring finger digging into the web of your hand. Her shoulders are shaking so hard you're afraid she might fall apart. You want to put your arm around her, but you feel like your body is frozen.

"I'm sorry," you hear a woman say. She talking to you from just across a large oak desk, but she sounds like she's miles away. Her nameplate reads, Dr. Swinton.

"I wish there was something else I could tell you."

She sounds more pained than you feel.

You don't feel anything.

You will. It will come crashing down on you later, when you're lying in bed tonight. You'll cry into your pillow until you're almost too exhausted to breath, and no one will ever know that you cried at all. That's how it always goes.

"Why didn't he wait for us?" Pete is asking. The white walls are gone, replaced with fire and wreckage and angry grey smoke. He sounds furious. You can barely process the question.

"What are we going to do?"

"Top of my list…" he kicks a piece of ruble with the strength and precision of someone who spent their childhood playing sports, "kill that son of a bitch, McPherson."

You see something metallic glint in the light of the sparks coming from a nearby heap of wire. You lean closer.

"Oh my god."

You reach down and pick up Artie's glasses. "Pete."

He's at your side in an instant, squinting at them over your shoulder. This explosion tore apart steel rods the size of your body, but the glass lenses and delicate wire frame are completely undamaged. You could have picked them up off a shelf at Lens Crafters.

You hear a fizzling sound, and when you look up, a cloud of grey-brown smoke is swirling six feet in front of you.

"Pete, what is that?"

"I don't know." You feel his hand on your arm. "Get back over here. It might be a—"

"No," you interrupt. "I don't—I don't think it is."

"Oh my god."

Sparks are flashing around you like lightning.

"Are you getting a vibe?" you ask him.

It takes him a moment to respond.

"A good one."

* * *

"Okay, so uh, H.G. Wells is actually a woman," you say to yourself as you slip into the room where she is holding Pete by the point of his Tesla. "I'm going to have to process this."

"Well, make it fast, will you?" He looks over at H.G. Wells without moving his head. "And, and could you please be careful with that, okay? It's a Tesla, and up close it just might be—"

"Lethal," H.G. Wells finishes. Her lips twitch toward a smile that almost feels familiar to you. "I know all about it," she says into Pete's ear. "I brought it to the Warehouse."

"What?" you ask.

"I was apprenticed at Warehouse 12," she explains. "Nikola Tesla and I met at the Chicago World Fair in 1893."

She nods and smiles in a way that feels predatory. You wonder if you can keep her talking long enough to come up with some sort of plan. She does seem to know how impressive she is, seems eager to share.

"Woah," Pete sighs. "You are rocking my world, lady."

You agree, although you're not sure this is quite the time.

She turns back to you, and her smile disappears. "Perhaps you'd like to tell me why you're ransacking my home," she says through clenched teeth.

"Ransacking your home," you repeat, to buy yourself time to think. "Well that has a distinctive _ringtone_ to it."

You can only hope that Pete understands as your hand inches casually toward your pocket.

"What does that mean?" H.G. Wells asks. You can't tell if she's suspicious or merely intrigued by the world she woke up to.

"Oh, it's an American expression… that means…" Pete raises his eyebrows at you, and you nod as imperceptibly as you can, "gotcha."

The Cookie Monster's voice fills the foyer. H.G. Wells turns her head to look for the source of the noise. Pete takes the opportunity to twist out of her grasp.

"I'll take that," he mutters as he tries to wrestle the Tesla out of her hands. "I'd hate to have to hit a sweet old Victorian lady."

You pull your gun just as she kicks him in the face.

"I, on the other hand, have no problem shooting one."

Her face is only about a foot from the barrel of your gun. It's the closest you've been to her since this whole fiasco began, and you swear you recognize her square jaw and high cheekbones from somewhere.

You're not holding a gun on her anymore, and she's smiling at you again, only now it doesn't feel predatory at all. It's the odd mixture of excitement and curiosity you've seen so often on her. Her hair is loose and hangs around her face, and she's wearing a waistcoat and jacket. A bowtie hangs loosely around her neck. Her shirt is buttoned all the way up for once.

You're standing in what you recognize as a courtroom, maybe the one in Rapid City, and you're happy. You're so happy.

Your fingers are laced with hers.

A tear runs down your cheek, and she untangles one of her hands from yours to reach up and wipe it away.

When you come back, Pete is wrestling her to the ground and you're still standing there with your gun pointed at empty air feeling vaguely nauseous.


	2. Chapter 2

"Pete?"

You nudge him over the armrest. He shifts and bumps the bottom of his tray table with his knee.

"We back already?"

"No," you answer. "We're over Greenland. I have to talk to you about something."

You'd have preferred to do this back at Leena's, or at least in a hotel room, but Artie required you back at once, and you don't want to wait. Everyone near you is either wearing headphones or looks like they're sleeping, so this will have to do.

"What's up?" he asks.

"You know how…" You hesitate. "You know how sometimes you say that I seem like I'm dazed?"

Pete nods slowly. "Like you're not all there or something. Yeah, Mykes, I know. You get that blank look in your eyes. Like today, when we were with Crazy McGenius. You spaced out and I had to take her down."

"Yeah, like that." You pause and take a deep breath. "I go somewhere. Somewhere else. I see things."

"Uh, like what uh…" Pete swallows. "What kind of things?"

"Pete, I saw H.G. Wells." You say it quickly, so you don't change your mind halfway through.

"When? Today?" Pete asks, his eyebrows raised.

You nod. "Yeah."

"So what, is it like…" Pete squints at you. "Are they like hallucinations?"

"No," you answer quickly. "It's like I'm some other version of me. And I'm just doing random, everyday things, but there are people I don't know. There's this child I don't recognize. I saw you once."

He smirks. "How'd I look?"

You twist your mouth as you think about it. "Older."

"So is it…." He hesitates. "Could it be like, the future or something?"

"No," you answer firmly. "It can't be. Some of the things I've seen… they're impossible."

"Well, when you saw H.G. Wells, what was she doing?" Pete asks.

"We were in court," you tell him. "In South Dakota, I think. I saw the South Dakota flag."

"Like she was being charged with something."

"Not exactly," you say. "It wasn't a criminal court. The thing is," you rush to change the subject, "I haven't always been like this. The first time it happened was when Mrs. Frederic showed up at my apartment in D.C. I saw that child blowing bubbles. I thought it was a memory from when I was little."

"So they're not all about H.G. Wells," Pete says. "Is there anything that connects them?"

"No, no." You wave your hand. "I just wanted you to know. H.G. Wells could have gotten away if you hadn't been there. You're my partner. You should know."

He leans towards her. "I'm your friend too. If you need to talk, Mykes…" he settles back in his seat, and closes his eye again, "I'm here."

* * *

"Myka Bering? The algebra girl?"

You smile, a wide, toothy smile that probably looks like your worst yearbook picture. You close your lips.

"Yeah."

"I'm glad you could make it," he tells you.

"Really. Well, you know, I—I mostly came because of that nice email that you sent me."

"Oh!" he replies. "Oh, yeah, yeah, uh, Megan sent those out. We're co-chairs."

"Ah." You try to cover your embarrassment as your heart sinks. "So, you two still a… couple?"

It probably comes out casual enough.

"No." He furrows his brow. "Not since senior prom. I think uh, once you see somebody vomit that much for that long…" He takes the beer the bartender hands him. "Changes everything."

You're leaning against the doorway of a bright green-painted bedroom. The walls are plastered with posters depicting the blueprints of starships from various science fiction franchises. A teenage girl with brown hair so short it looks like a buzz cut is sitting sideways on a chair in front of a roll-top desk against the wall. Your eyes are drawn to a bruise the size of a baseball on her shin.

"I want to go to the homecoming dance this year."

"But you're supposed to start treatment on Monday," you answer.

"I know," the girl says. "But I had to miss prom last year, and this could be the last high school dance I ever get to go to. The last dance I was at, I didn't even know to savor it. And I already have the dress."

She gestures over to a bright blue dress hanging on the back of the closet door.

You can tell she's rehearsed this conversation in her head.

"I don't know," you answer slowly. You chew on your bottom lip. "All that dancing, and you'd be up late. I'm worried about your health."

She tilts her head and frowns at you. "I'm already sick. What's there to worry about?"

When you come back, Kurt is gesturing to a table of guys you recognize as people who weren't nearly as nice to you as he was in high school and looking at you expectantly.

"Yeah, I… I remember them," you say. You pause, but he's still looking at you, waiting for an answer to a question you didn't hear him ask. "Maybe later?" you guess.

He nods. "Maybe later."

* * *

You manage to impress Kurt at your high school reunion, but not the way you expected to. You only make it through the first two hours and a single conversation with him, and then you're in some hallway with no shirt on.

At first you think you've gone somewhere, but then you realize you're in another body and _that_ has definitely never happened before.

Kelly's there and she's touching you and asking you to do things to her, and you can feel yourse—you can feel Pete reacting. Which is natural because you're in Pete's body and this is Pete's girlfriend.

You shut yourself in the bedroom, and then you're back in your own body.

You're still not wearing a shirt and you're still in a room with a bed, but you're pressing someone up against a door. Someone with breasts and long hair that you can feel your hand tangled in.

Your lips are on her neck. You can feel her pulse and hear her heavy breathing.

Her hands are all over you and you're caught up in it. You can't focus on anything except how amazing it feels.

"Desk," the woman rasps in a voice you recognize. A voice with a British accent.

You pull away from H.G. Wells and watch her walk across what looks like a motel room and push aside a pile of takeout menus, a couple of plastic-wrapped Styrofoam cups, and a book that looks like it's about Vikings and perch on the edge of the desk.

She gives you a pointed look. "Care to join?"

When you return to Pete's body, you sink onto the end of the mattress and drop your head into Pete's too-big hands. Tears pick at the corners of your eyes because you don't know what's happening to you. You don't know why you're seeing these things that must be out of some other timeline, or maybe just someone else's life altogether, because that couldn't have been _you_.

But you need to figure out what's happening to you more immediately, you tell yourself as you run Pete's hand through Pete's hair.

Maybe if you don't think about it, you'll never have to.

* * *

You to get to kiss Kurt before you leave. You lean into it, determined to make it amazing, determined to make it better than it was with… than the last kiss you had. It _has_ to be because you've liked him forever and you're _not_ gay.

You don't even like H.G. Wells.

His mouth tastes like beer, and his whiskers scratch against your lips, even though he looks clean shaven.

"Is that alcohol on your breath?"

The teenager standing in front of you is wearing the bright blue dress you saw hanging in her bedroom before. It ties behind her neck and nearly reaches the floor. Her hair is glittered with spray-on sparkles.

"It's mouthwash, Mom," she replies.

You scoff. "And why would you have used mouthwash at homecoming, Catherine?"

She rolls her eyes. "Catherine? Oh god, I must be in trouble."

"You're damn right you are." You cross your arms and clench your teeth to stop yourself from saying, _young lady_. "You're supposed to start treatment on Monday." You glance at your watch. "Tomorrow. Do you know what time it is? You promised us you'd get back here right after the dance ended."

"So what? I'm grounded?" the girl asks. "I'm already going to be stuck here."

"Oh good," a familiar voice says over your shoulder. When you look over, H.G. Wells is standing at the top of the staircase. There are wrinkles around her mouth and her hair is greyer than it is brown. "You're home."

You know why H.G. Wells seemed so familiar in London.

You feel dazed when you pull away. Kurt smiles politely at you. You barely notice.

* * *

Claudia starts her first case as an apprentice confident and excited and slowly deflates over the course of your first day on Tamalpais University's campus. She flops down on her back on one of the beds in the motel room that night with the longest sigh you've ever heard.

"I don't know how to do this," she groans as she covers her face with her hands. She takes a couple of deep breaths and drops her arms to her sides. "Why did I think coming out here was a good idea? Not everyone's built for fieldwork. I should have known. I was in a mental institution. I don't know how to talk to people."

"Stop beating yourself up," you say as you sit down on the bed opposite her and kick off your shoes. "This has nothing to do with that. It just takes practice."

"How can you be so calm about all this?" Claudia asks. "You were so cool in the locker room, and then when that guy caught on fire…"

"I was fine in the locker room because those guys were in middle school when I was their age. It was like being in a room with twenty half-naked younger brothers." You roll your eyes. "And dealing with the effects of the artifacts… that comes later. I'm used to it. I've been doing this for over a year. This is your first time out. Don't compare yourself to me."

"No, stop comparing yourself to me."

Claudia looks older now, but not by much. Not by enough. She's wearing less eye makeup and her hair is free of brightly colored highlights. Her face is more angular with the slightest beginnings of wrinkles, but mostly she just looks tired. She is seated at a dining room table beside the same girl, Catherine, you called her, but she's younger this time, wearing a purple knit beanie with a large flower on the side.

The table is scattered with gears and wires and scraps of metal in various sizes.

"How long have I been doing this?"

"I don't know, twenty years?"

Claudia presses a hand to her chest. "Thirty-five. I'm hurt. And how long have you been doing this?"

"Three hours."

"Exactly. Now come on, just bend that wire a little bit that way," Claudia says, peering over Catherine's shoulder. "Careful. Yeah, like that."

You hear a fizzle and something lights up in Catherine's hands.

"Cool!" she exclaims. She looks at Claudia, and then up at you. "Look, Mom!"

"Look at you! You're a natural!" Claudia claps her on the shoulder. "You've officially built your very first Farnsworth. I can't believe H.G.'s never done this with you before. Next time we'll try a Tesla."

"You will not," you answer. "No weapons."

"But _Mom_ ," Claudia whines.

"No weapons," you repeat.

"Fine, I'll hunt down the schematics for H.G.'s grappler. Not a weapon!" she adds quickly when you open your mouth to speak.

"That's the thing though."

You're back on the bed, and Claudia is sitting up on the now, resting her elbows on her knees.

"You've only been here a year and you're already like… like some character on a TV show or something. And you were never a mess like I was. I couldn't even interview a frat boy wrestler."

"It just takes practice," you assure her. "I was in the Secret Service for years before I came to Warehouse 13. You're twenty years old. You'll get it." You stretch and move to sit on the edge of her bed. "What would you tell me if I was frustrated I couldn't build a Farnsworth from scratch?"

Claudia smiles reluctantly. "That you have to start smaller. Let yourself learn."

"I think that's great advice," you tell her.

* * *

A year ago, you would have seriously considered killing Pete for a chance to talk to H.G. Wells. Now, you hate to admit that you're even enjoying it.

"I flew here," she tells you. "On an aeroplane. In the sky. Can you believe it? It was incredible. I rather wish I'd been able to witness that in its early stages." She's quiet for a moment. "Look, there goes one now. How can you not even look up?"

"The first flight was in 1903," you answer. "It's pretty old news."

"Bugger," H.G. mutters. "Just missed it."

Your phone buzzes in your pocket. You fish it out and flip it open.

"Claudia says the coach has been acting suspicious."

"Does that send messages?" H.G. asks, peering at your phone.

"Sends messages, makes calls," you answer distractedly as you shove it back in your pocket.

"Calls…" H.G. says. "Ah, it's a telephone. They have become quite a bit smaller and more mobile, haven't they? You know, if you don't mind, I would love a chance to take that apart."

"I mind," you reply.

"No matter," H.G. says. "I shall find one elsewhere."

"That's right." You gesture towards her. "Thief."

"No one said anything about thieving," she says. "And I'd thank you to stop jumping to conclusions about me."

"Well, you don't have any money," you point out. "What am I supposed to think?"

H.G. pauses. "Fair point. I will borrow one, and then, once I've learned how it works, I will make improvements and return it."

"Myka!" H.G.'s voice rings through the building. "Have you seen my laptop?"

You're bent over at the waist staring at a tile floor as you scrunch gel into your hair. You straighten up and flip your hair back over your head. You're standing in a bathroom that is clearly located in a house.

"What?"

"My laptop!" H.G. calls. "It's not where I left it."

"It's not on the nightstand?" you ask.

"No, that's where I left it!"

"Okay, hold on!" you reply. "I'll be right there."

You rinse your hands and store the bottle on the rack inside the door of the linen closet, where you know it goes, despite the fact that you've never seen this bathroom before.

When you leave the bathroom, you're standing in a bedroom, where H.G. is ripping the sheets off a queen-sized bed.

"Helena, I think if your computer was in our bed, we would have found it last night," you point out. "Where else do you remember having it? The living room? The back porch?" You don't wait for an answer. "I'll look for it."

You exit the bedroom into a hallway. There's an open door on the other side of the hall. When you poke your head in, you're looking at the same bedroom you've seen before, but it's purple now, and instead of posters, framed pictures of jungle animals hang on the wall.

"Kate, have you seen—" You break off when your eyes land on the elementary school-aged girl on the floor. She's got curly, brown hair in a messy braid that reaches past her shoulders and she can't be older than seven or eight.

She's holding a laptop with a University of Colorado sticker on it in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. A pile of keys from the keyboard are piled on the floor in front of her.

"Hon!" you call without looking away. "I think I found your laptop!"

Catherine… Kate looks up at you. "I wanted to see how it worked."

"It is nice to see the sky again," H.G. is saying when you find yourself back beside her on the sidewalk at Tamalpais. "I was in that blasted room for so long. I was once able to identify different types of clouds by looking at them. As a child, I was fascinated with the sky."

You stop and look around, trying to discern where exactly you are.

"Something the matter?" H.G. asks.

"No, I just…" You trail off. "I wasn't paying attention. I think we need to go back a block."

"With a sense of direction like this, how in the world do you manager to navigate the Warehouse?" H.G. asks, but she follows you as you turn around, and then she's back to listing the type of clouds that denote an approaching storm.

It's not that interesting, you tell yourself.

* * *

You stand next to Pete at Dickenson's funeral. Artie is a foot behind you. You didn't bring sunglasses because the weather was decidedly wet, but now, as tears prick at the corners of your eyes, you wish you had.

Dickenson's wife is speaking. You met her once at Dickenson's fifty-fifth birthday party. She's a small woman with broad shoulders that tell you she's stronger than she looks. His daughter speaks too. You've never met her, but you know she's a sophomore at Columbia. When she was accepted, he talked about it for a month. You remember the picture of her he had on his desk, wet hair in pigtails, wearing heart-shaped sunglasses and smiling with two missing front teeth. Her name is Kayla.

"Helena, aren't you coming in?" you call. You're waist-deep in water. It's a bright, breezy day on a beach with white sand. In the distance, you can see a line of sprawling resorts and a Ferris wheel.

"No thank you!" H.G. calls from a fold-out chair under a powder blue umbrella. She's holding a hardcover copy of _The Martian Chronicles_. "I'm afraid I read _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_ in 1877, and I shall never go in the ocean again."

"Well, I saw _Jaws_ in 1994, _and_ I'm cephalophobic, and here I am," you argue.

You feel a tug on your hand. When you look down, Kate is staring up at you, slightly younger than the last time, with wet hair and a missing tooth. She's wearing goggles with an attached snorkel hanging limply against her chin.

"Mommy, come on."

"Go on!" H.G. calls. She pats the cooler sitting beside her. "I'll meet you with ice creams when you're finished."

A drop of rain hits the bridge of your nose. It's started to sprinkle. The white sand and blue-green waves are replaced with the green and grey of the cemetery, the red, white, and blue of the flag draped over Dickenson's casket.

The minister is finishing a prayer you recognize. Your Christian friends used to say it before lunch in high school. You don't remember hearing him start.

You lean closer to Pete. "I'm just going to take a walk."

He nods distractedly. "Okay."

You find a bench in front of a row of headstones that are old and discolored. You can barely see Dickenson's family through the bushes from here.

"It's a bloody rotten business."

You jump and look up. H.G. Wells is standing over you in a long, black coat that looks like it's meant for riding. She offers you a sad smile.

"What are you doing here?" you ask.

"Same as you. Trying to find Torquemada's chain," she answers. "It was on our most-desired list at Warehouse 12."

"You know what? You are actually on Artie's most-desired list." You stand up and turn to look at her. "So unless you want to be bronzed again, I would suggest you get out of here—"

"He's still opposed to my returning as an agent." She takes a step toward you.

"Well, he's opposed to your existence," you say. "So, yeah, I would say that extends to you—"

"This is absurd," H.G. exclaims. She lowers her voice. "I saved your life. I saved Claudia's life. I—I—I've proven I can be trusted. More than that, I've proven that I'm of value—"

"I'm not questioning your value," you tell her. "I'm curious about your motives."

"Myka, I can't." She insists. "I don't belong in this world. The Warehouse is my—"

"I'm going to need more than that," you interrupt, because you've heard this spiel before. You can hear when something has been rehearsed. "I'm going to need more than, she doesn't like the world." You pause. She's staring at you, mouth hanging open, as though she doesn't know what to give you.

"I'm going to need the truth," you tell her. "Why did they bronze you? What… what did you do that the Regents felt they had to encase you—"

"I asked to be bronzed," she tells you slowly, gently.

You're silent for a moment, unsure whether to believe her.

"You asked," you repeat. "Who in their right mind wou—"

"I wasn't in my right mind." She runs both hands through her hair and sits down on the bench. For a second, you're not sure she's going to continue, but then she looks up at you. The looks like a very different person than the woman who held Pete at Tesla-point in London. She almost looks afraid.

"My daughter, my Christina, had been murdered."

You look away.

There are a lot of possible explanations you were anticipating, each more absurd than the last. This is not one of them.

"A senseless crime. Brutal and senseless," she continues. "I had to try to… to change it. I was working in a place where miracles happen." She smiles at you. It's the first time you feel anything towards her other than anger or suspicion. "There had to be something, some way to bring her back or to turn back time. I spent years desperately combing the shelves of Warehouse 12." She takes a deep breath. "Twice I was discovered and brought before the Regents, twice they were lenient and gave me a reprieve. The third time…" she hesitates, clenches and unclenches her jaw, "my recklessness cost the life of a fellow agent.

"I was distraught, and quite mad, I'm afraid. I had become a danger." She swallows and looks down at her lap. "So I asked, and they said yes." She looks back up at you, smiling sadly. "I suppose I hoped to awaken in a different world." She shrugs. "A better one."

"The bronzer was your time machine," you say.

"Closest I could come," she agrees.

You consider it for a moment before sitting down beside her. You can see her breathe what you think is a sigh of relief. You're both stiff, careful not to touch each other. You watch her for a moment, staring out at the cemetery.

You're sitting in a metal chair in a white room with magenta indoor/outdoor carpet. There are people moving about, filing out of the rows of chairs. When you look up, your eyes settle on a wood casket, and you realize you're at another funeral.

Someone is gripping your hand tightly. Your cheeks are wet and you're angry about that.

"Myka."

Your mother's voice is soft and quiet. She's wearing a black dress under a black cardigan and a string of pearls. A black ribbon is pinned to the front of her cardigan. Her eyes are red and puffy and she looks older than you've ever seen her.

"I wasn't sure you'd come."

"Mom." You're voice cracks when you speak. You stand up and let her pull you into a long, tight hug.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm sorry I never called."

You wipe your eyes as she lets you go.

"And you must be Helena." Your mother looks past you. You try to move out of the way as she extends her hand to the woman standing on your other side, but you nearly fall back into your chair. "I've heard only good things about you from Tracey. I'm so glad you're here."

"My condolences," H.G. says. "It was a beautiful service."

"Warren would have hated it." Your mother looks back at you. "You weren't with us before it started."

"I'm not…" you trail off and take a breath. "I wasn't sure you'd want me there."

"Myka," you mother murmurs. "You're my daughter. Come, so the pallbearers can take him."

She takes you by the hand. You fumble for H.G. with your free hand as your mother pulls you into the isle.

"You're not…" you hesitate. "You're not mad anymore?"

"Oh, honey, no." Your mother rests a hand on your cheek. "Tracey and I are sitting shiva at my house. I hope you'll join us." She glances over your shoulder. "Both of you."

"I can't stay long," you answer. "We have to get back to Univille. I told them I'd only be gone two days."

"So come tonight," your mother says. "Say the Kaddish with us. You can leave tomorrow morning."

You hesitate and look over at Helena. "We'll talk about it."

Your mother nods. "Of course." She pulls you by the hand toward a side room where you suspect she is supposed to be waiting with Tracey's family for the procession to start. "So tell me about your life. You have a daughter."

"Yes," H.G. answers when you don't. "Kate. She'll be two in July."

"I'd love to meet her."

H.G. is still sitting on the bench when you return, staring straight ahead, her jaw clenched.

"I'll talk to Artie," you promise her.

She doesn't meet your eyes when she thanks you.

* * *

H.G. almost freezes to death in Russia. It's not the first time one of you has been whammied, as Pete so eloquently puts it, and you're sure it's not the first time it's happened to her. You don't even see it happen, so you're not sure why it shakes you up.

Perhaps it's because H.G. isn't being paid to do this. She's not a Warehouse agent. She saves a man who wants her bronzed, just to show that she can be trusted.

She flies home with you and Artie and Pete, nestled in the seat between you and the window. She hasn't looked away from the window since you took off.

"It never gets old, being up here," she tells you. "I was up in a hot air balloon once, but it was nothing like this."

On another day, you would ask her what it was like to be so high up in the open air, with nothing between her and a fall to her death except a basket. Today, there is only one question on your mind.

"Do you think they'll bronze you again?"

"I'm quite sure I don't know," H.G. answers without looking up. "I dare say you know these people better than I do."

You shake your head. "I've never met any of them."

"Well then, we shall be surprised." She does look at you this time. There is a playful smile on her face, and you wonder whether it's for more your benefit or hers.

"How can you be so calm about all this?" you ask. "Immobile but still conscious? It sounds like torture. And if they bronze you again, who knows how long it'll be until—"

"I'm well aware of my predicament, thank you," she tells you sharply.

You nod and look away. "Sorry. I guess if there's anyone who knows how bad it is, it's you."

"Not to worry," she replies. "Sometimes, hell is the price we pay for good intentions. You will come and talk to me though, won't you? In the bronze sector? I mean, now that you know I can hear you—"

"Of course," you answer. "But it's not going to come to that."

She raises her eyebrows. "You're the one who asked."

H.G. is still staring out the window, but there's a seat between the two of your, and you're in the aisle seat now.

"Are we almost there?" Kate asks. She's slouching in the middle seat, swiping her finger across a tablet that's thinner than the ones they sell now. She looks the right age to be in middle school.

You check the time on your phone. "We've only been in the air two hours."

"It's not every day you're flying, darling," H.G. tells her. She's pressed against the window, watching the farms of Kansas pass underneath you. "Enjoy it."

Kate groans. "It's boring."

She's wearing a pair of mouse ears and a T-shirt with an animated character you don't recognize on it.

"I'm hungry," she complains.

"They'll come around with snacks in a minute," you tell her.

She sighs, overly dramatic in the way only a teenager can pull off.

H.G. turns away from the window. "Are you determined to be miserable this entire trip?"

"No," Kate mumbles.

"Are you feeling okay?" you ask, suddenly worried. You're not sure why that's what you jump to. "Maybe we should have waited longer—"

"I'm fine, Mom. God!" She throws herself back against the seat in irritation. "Are you going to ask me that every five minutes?"

"I might," you answer with a nod.

H.G. smiles at her. "Don't worry. Once we're there, you'll be having so much fun, you won't even notice your mother being concerned for your wellbeing. Pete has assured me this is the happiest place on Earth. Personally, I find that very difficult to believe, but it's important to have an open mind."

Kate's lips quirk up in the beginnings of a smile.

"At least I was able to experience this," H.G is saying when you return. It's a shock to find her so much closer than she was a moment ago. "I could almost keep my mind busy just thinking about it for the next one hundred and ten years."


	3. Chapter 3

H.G. does not get bronzed. Much to Artie's dismay, she is reinstated as a Warehouse agent instead.

It only takes her one trip to move all her things into Leena's. She pulls a purple leopard-print coin purse out of her jacket and begins to pull out books, articles of clothing, a sketch pad.

"No way!" Claudia gasps. "Is that an artifact?"

H.G. shakes her head. "Just something I cooked up so I wouldn't have to carry a suitcase while hunting for artifacts. I have been effectively homeless for months, you know."

"Uh, H.G." Pete gestures at the coin purse. "What's with the leopard-print. Seems a little… 2002."

"Well, I'm not sure what that means, but this was the most distinctive one I could find." She smiles mischievously. "Wouldn't want it getting mixed up with someone else's pocket change."

She tosses the coin purse on the bed and begins to fold her clothes. "Myka, could you be a dear and put the books on the desk over there? Just anywhere. I'll organize them later."

You're reaching for the books, but you pick up a cardboard box. "Myka – Work Clothes" is scribbled across the top in blue Sharpie.

"I guess I won't need these anymore," you sigh.

H.G. stands up from where she's transferring books from a box onto a bookshelf and comes to read the writing on the box over your shoulder.

"Myka," she says. She rests her hand on the small of your back.

"I'm okay," you assure her.

"You could have stayed with the secret service," she tells you. "Gone back to the mint. It may not be too late. I can talk to Claudia—"

"It's fine," you insist. "This is better. It'll be good for Kate. I loved spending time in my dad's shop when I was little. Besides, one of us has to be free to take her to doctor's appointments."

"You're sure?" H.G. asks. "It doesn't have to be dangerous. I'm sure they have desk jobs."

You smile at her. "What gave you the impression that I'd be interested in sitting at a desk doing paperwork for eight hours a day?"

"Agreed. Paperwork is for fools who've lost touch with their dreams." H.G. leans over to brush a kiss against your lips. "Righty hoe, we should get started unpacking Kate's room. Your sister won't keep her forever."

"Myka, are you quite alright?"

You realize you're staring blankly at the cover of a copy of _Journey to the Center of the Earth_ that looks several decades old.

"Sorry." You shake your head. "I just spaced out for a minute."

"You okay, Mykes?" Pete is giving you a significant look.

"Fine," you tell him, but you can tell by the look on his face that this conversation isn't over.

* * *

You're helping H.G. and Claudia set up the projector. You've never been in this part of the Warehouse before. It looks like a workshop-turned-storage space. The other end of the table is stacked with strangely shaped pieces of metal that were apparently pushed out of the way to make room for the projector.

Behind you, Pete is telling Rebecca about how he used to sneak into screenings of _Independence Day_ in high school when he worked at a movie theater.

"Ah, yes, I remember that film," Rebecca answers. "Of course, the design of their spaceship was way off."

"No way!" Claudia exclaims over the table. "You've seen a real alien spaceship?"

Rebecca tuts at her. "You didn't think the Warehouse sat out all that business in 1964, did you?"

Claudia's eyes widen. "Those were real aliens?"

"Of course," Rebecca scoffs. "No one really believed that ridiculous story about weather balloons, did they? Surely someone here read Dr. Banks' book?"

"Yeah, but she said that was an ancient language from some tablets found on the bottom of the ocean," you recall. "Are you saying they were really from aliens?"

Rebecca shakes her head and mutters something, but all you catch is, "tablets nonsense."

"Did you meet the aliens?" Pete asks.

"No, that was for the scientists and a small entourage of military personel," she says. "Jack and I were only there to monitor for the creation of artifacts. Something that big, you're bound to have a few."

As Pete asks Rebecca how similar it was to _The Day the Earth Stood Still_ , H.G. learns close to you across the table. "I've been meaning to ask. Have I driven a wedge between you and Artie?"

"Artie's cool," Claudia assures her with a wave of her hand. She seems to be only half listening, still focused on whatever Rebecca's answer is. "He'll come around."

H.G. doesn't seem particularly convinced. She's still looking at you, waiting for your answer.

You shake your head. "It's not your fault. Artie's stubborn. He gets stuck on an idea, and he won't let it go." You smile at her. "You'll prove him wrong."

"It's just that I'm aware I've upset some sort of balance between the four of you," H.G. says. "I don't want you to think I take it for granted, everything you've done for me."

"I don't think that," you tell her. "And listen, don't worry about Artie. He's upset because I wrote a letter on your behalf and because I called you Helena. He'll get over it."

"You called me Helena?"

When you look up from the wires you're unraveling, H.G. is beaming.

"Why wouldn't I?" you ask. "It's your name."

You expect some sort of joke about how you're going soft or how there really is a heart under that suit. You expect the kind of thing Pete would have said, had he been listening.

Instead, H.G. replies, "That's the first time anyone's said my first name since I was debronzed."

"Really?"

"Yes." She reaches over the table and squeezes your arm.

H.G.'s hand is still tight on your arm, but you're back at Leena's, setting a suitcase on the floor in the foyer. As soon as you straighten up, she pulls you to her.

"How are you?" she asks as she smooths your hair.

Your eyes feel dry, like you've been crying. You feel like you might start again.

"It was horrible," you whisper, wrapping your arms tightly around her shoulders and burying your face in the side of her neck. "He told me—" You break off as a choked sob wrenches itself painfully out of your throat.

"Shh," H.G. murmurs. "You don't have to tell me just now."

She lets you cry into the collar of her shirt until you're breathless and hiccupping. When you finally pull away, you rub the heel of your palms across your eyes furiously.

"Come, darling." H.G. takes your elbow and leads you into the downstairs bathroom. She pushes you down onto the lid of the toilet and pulls the hand towel off the rack.

"You should have let me come with you," she tells you gently as she wets it with warm water.

You shake your head. "That would have made it harder."

She tips your chin up and blots the towel across your face.

"Well, I can't imagine why that would be."

"I wouldn't have wanted you to see me like that," you admit. "Being at odds with my dad always makes me feel like I'm a kid again. And you would have jumped to my defense, and that… it wouldn't have helped."

"You know," she says. "I never got the impression your family was particularly religious."

You wipe your eyes. "My parents are more observant than I am, but that's… it's not even about religion." You sigh. "My dad just has this… this stubborn idea about how things should be that's probably been the same since 1965, and I've never really fit into it."

"I dare say I know what that's like," Helena replies.

"I love you," you whisper so quietly you're not even sure she heard you until she answers.

"And I, you." She bends down and presses a kiss to your forehead. She tosses the towel onto the counter and kneels in front of you, takes both of your hands. Her eyes are fierce and determined. "Myka, I need you to know something. If they don't understand what they have in you, they don't belong in your life anyway."

You've never felt emotionally exhausted after returning from wherever you go, but this time, you feel absolutely gutted.

H.G. is still smiling at you across the table. Her smile falters when you don't return it.

"Alright?" she asks you.

You nod. "Fine." You can feel Pete's eyes on the back of your neck. "Can you pass me that screwdriver, Helena? I'm going to start setting up the screen."

She smiles even more brilliantly than before.

* * *

You're glad to have something like time travel to keep you occupied. That way, you don't have time to dwell on why you keep seeing yourself and Helena in a house together, growing older, with a child.

You're seeing into another timeline. You're sure of it.

When the two of you return, Artie is standing over you, and they're all staring at you like you're back from the dead.

"Did something happen?" you ask as you untangle your headgear from your hair.

"No," Artie and Helena reply in unison so quickly that you're positive they're lying.

"Did you see the artifact?" Rebecca asks.

"Not only did we see it, we know where it is," Pete answers. "It's safe."

"Were you able to save any of those women?" Helena asks hopefully, rubbing her neck. You can't bear to be the one to tell her no.

"Well, I guess you can't change the past," Claudia says, side-eyeing Helena. "No matter how hard you try."

There is a moment of silence where you all seem to be thinking about something different, and then Rebecca nods toward the time machine.

"That machine, does it still work?"

"Don't tell us you want us to go back and get another artifact," you say. It's supposed to be a joke to lighten the mood, but no one laughs, and you think you've seriously misread the tone of the situation.

"No," Rebecca answers. "But would like to see Jack again, one more time."

"Well, the—th—the circuitry's severely damaged, and—and the trip wouldn't last more than a few moments," Helena answers. You think the stammering is cute for a moment, before you catch yourself. "And… I wouldn't be able to bring you back."

Rebecca looks at Helena for a long second. "Why would I want to come back?"

A cool breeze whips flyaway hairs across your face. They don't look brown.

The Warehouse's walls are gone and you're sitting on a bench on a hill that overlooks a neighborhood you don't recognize. The sun is setting in front of you.

"It's getting cold early this year," Helena remarks. She's sitting beside you, fingering her locket with her left hand. Her right is clasped in both of yours.

"Maybe we'll see snow before your winter break starts," you reply. You toy with the ring on her ring finger. It has some sort of design etched into it.

Helena lets out a bark of a laugh. "I hope not. You know how I feel about driving in the snow. It's deadly enough in pleasant conditions."

The silence between you is comfortable, but you're nervous, trying to say something that you can't quite get out.

"Should we move?" you finally blurt out. You turn to look at her for the first time. Her hair is grey now, streaked with white and drawn up into a loose bun, and she is wearing a pair of glasses you have never seen before.

She frowns. "Move?"

"Yeah." You shrug. "We could go back to Univille."

Helena raises her eyebrows. "You want to spend our golden years in Univille, South Dakota?"

"Pete's there," you say. "Or we could go somewhere else. But we're both getting old, and there's nothing really keeping us here anymore."

"What about shop?" Helena asks.

"I could retire," you answer. "I have a pension, and you still have an income. You tap her ring with your finger."

"Our house," Helena says.

"We could… sell it."

"Sell it?"

"We don't have to," you rush to add. "I just feel like it's empty now, you know? I feel like if we stay there, we're going to spend our last years living in the past. Going through the motions. I want to get out. I want to travel. There are whole parts of the world we've never seen. Not even with the Warehouse."

She looks away, out toward the neat little rows of houses nestled among the trees. You can see her jaw working the way it does when she's thinking. Finally, she turns back to you, kisses the back of the hand clasped with hers. You can make out the design on her ring now, a tiny eye of Horus.

"Travel sounds wonderful," she tells you as her lips twitch into the grin you've learned so well.

You try not to cry as you watch Helena hook Rebecca up to the time machine. Claudia fumbles for your hand, and when you look at her, you can tell she is also holding back tears, albeit less successfully than you are.

Rebecca looks peaceful when she goes, even happy, and you know that the time machine held out long enough to put her in the arms of the person she loved one last time.

* * *

"It's been a busy day for you," Pete comments that evening. He's standing in your doorway watching you change your pillowcase. "You've probably spent less time now than you've spent every-when-else." He chuckles.

"Close the door," you reply, your voice low. "Claudia and Helena are right across the hall."

Pete's eyes widen. "H.G. doesn't know? Aren't you like, practically a character from one of her books?"

"No," you snap. You abandon the pillow on the bed and pull him into your room so you can close the door yourself.

Pete folds his arms. "You're having more of them now, aren't you?"

"They're getting longer too," you admit. "I used to only see flashes. Now I get entire conversations."

"And H.G.?" he asks. "She still showing up?"

You take a deep breath and nod. "Usually."

"Maybe you should ask Artie—"

"No," you interrupt. "I am not telling Artie, and neither are you. What if he decides I'm too dangerous to send into the field? I am not getting benched, Pete. I'm not cut out for that."

"Well then…" He runs his hand through his hair while he thinks. "Maybe you could ask H.G. She seems to know something about people's minds…" he makes a gesture with his hands that reminds her of a genie coming out of a bottle, "time travelling."

"I. Am. Not. Time travelling," you say through gritted teeth.

"How can you know?" Pete asks. "We were just in the sixties this morning. You know it's possible now."

"But I've seen things that aren't," you argue. "Or at least not in our lifetime."

"Like what?" Pete asks. "After everything we've seen, what is it that you still think is impossible.

You shake your head. "It's not important."

"Yes, it is," he insists. "This is your mind we're talking about." He pauses. "What can't you tell me?"

You take a deep breath. You realize you're going to tell him half a second before it comes out of your mouth.

"Same-sex marriage will never be legal in South Dakota," you whisper. "Not while we're alive."

Pete is silent for a moment. When he speaks again, his voice is soft.

"Mykes…" He takes a step closer to you. "You know you can tell me anything, right? We're partners. I've got your back."

"I'm not gay," you add quickly.

Pete exhales slowly. "Well, I think there are other options."

You shake your head and take a breath. "I saw myself… I saw myself getting… I saw myself marrying Helena. In a court in South Dakota. And that kid I mentioned? I think she's ours."

Pete lets out a low whistle.

"But it's not really me," you continue. "It's some other me. It has to be, right? Even if I was…" you hesitate, "even if I did want that, California can't even keep it legal. It's never going to happen here."

"Anything's possible," he tells you gently, as though it's actually true.

"You're supposed to be reassuring me it _can't_ happen," you point out, crossing your arms and turning away.

"You know what, Mykes? I can't," Pete tells you. "You picked the one person here who knows even less about this stuff than you do. I go get the artifacts and I put them in the bag. Artie, Leena, Claudia, H.G., they're the ones who figure out how it all works."

You sigh heavily and drop onto the corner of your bed, your head in your hands. "I'm sorry. I'm just so confused."

You feel the mattress dip as Pete sits down next to you. His hand is warm between your shoulder blades. "I know it's hard to not know what's happening to you," he says. "I've been whammied enough to know what that's like."

"I don't think it's quite the same," you say, and he sighs.

"Maybe not." He is silent for a moment. "You know can tell me this stuff, right? What you see in your… flashforwards?"

"They're not flashforwards," you answer. "But yeah, I know."

"Because you obviously thought you had to keep the whole…" he pauses and you know he's making some ridiculous gesture, even though you're not looking at him, "married-to-H.G. thing hidden. I don't judge."

"Thanks, Pete."

"Okay, good talk. You know where to find me." He gives your back a couple of pats, and then you feel him stand up. A moment later, you can hear the door of your room open and close.

* * *

"Is it even kosher, you know, Warehouse-wise?"

You look at Claudia, who looks at Helena, who looks back at Claudia.

"Right," Pete says, clapping his hands together. "Forgot who I was asking."

You furrow your brow. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Well," he gestures to Claudia, "she's a tech nerd," then to Helena, "she's a hundred and fifty, and you're…" he grimaces and wiggles his hand back and forth like he's thinking about what he can say in front of an audience, "Myka. Not exactly relationship success stories."

Claudia rounds on him. "Hey, I just got out of a serious relationship."

"You didn't _get out_ ," Pete argues. "He had to change his identity and move to a different state."

Claudia shrugs. "By order of the justice department." But then she nods. "Point taken."

"I know a thing or two about the opposite sex," Helena volunteers. She is clutching her clipboard to her chest. She reminds you of a new elementary school student, desperate to fit in, to be liked. "Many of my lovers were men."

When you look back at Pete his eyes are wide.

"We're going to follow up on that at a later date," he says once he has regained his ability to speak. His eyes drift down to you, and he raises his eyebrows.

You roll your eyes. You still haven't decided whether you regret telling him what you've been seeing in your—you grit your teeth—flashforwards. One the one hand, he's your best friend and you need someone to talk to about all this. On the other, he can be very obnoxious.

He's really more like a close sibling than any friend you've ever had.

"Okay, Pete." You stand up and lean on the back of your chair. "You just have to ask yourself one question."

"I know." He holds his hands up, palms facing you. "Do I enjoy being yelled at in Espagñol."

"Do you love her," you answer.

Behind you, Claudia and Helena are silent.

"Yeah," Pete answers after a long pause. "I—I—I think so." He grimaces. "I don't know."

You straighten up. "Okay, you're out to a restaurant. You order dessert. The waitress cuts it in half. One side is a little bit bigger than the other. Which half do you give her?"

"Well, the bigger half, of course, because otherwise—"

You throw your hands up to make your point. "You love her."

"Dude, you're screwed," Claudia comments.

Behind you, Helena is agreeing too.

You're knocking on Pete's bedroom door in the upstairs halfway at the Bed & Breakfast. Everything looks the same as it does now, except that you can see the door of one extra bedroom.

Pete cracks open his door. "What's up?"

"Can I talk to you?" You nod past him, towards his room.

"Oh!" He steps back from the door. "Yeah, sure. What's going on?"

He sits on the end of his bed as you close the door behind you. You cross your arms and then uncross them and start to pace. You've done two laps across his room when you finally speak.

"I want to… I want to tell Helena… that I love her."

Pete leans back, bracing himself with his hands, and blows an exhale out through his mouth. "Wow."

"Yeah," you reply.

"Wow, this is—this is big." He leans forward again, elbows on his knees. After a moment, he looks up at you.

"Yeah, I just don't know…" you take a deep breath, try to slow yourself down, "how or when or… whether I should."

"Okay, Mykes, I got this," Pete leans forward on his elbows. "Say you're at a restaurant—"

"It's not because I don't know whether I love her," you snap. You stop, sigh, and start pacing again. "You know I do."

"Ohhh," Pete says. He furrows his eyebrows and then unfurrows them. "You think she won't say it back?"

"No, I—I—I think she will. Probably," you say uncertainly.

"Then what's the problem?" Pete asks.

"I just…" You cross your arms. "I want it to be right."

Pete looks up at you. "If you love her and she loves you, why wouldn't it be?"

You shrug, study your socks.

Pete stands up and rests a hand on your shoulder. "Mykes, she's crazy about you. She always has been." He gives you a jiggle. "What are you so worried about?"

When you come back, you're staring at your shoes. Mrs. Frederic is there talking to Pete, and Claudia and Helena are packing to flee.

* * *

It's easy to forget the Helena had a daughter until you see her with kids. She gets more information out of John Tilson's ten-year-old sister in three minutes than you and Pete did from your fifteen-minute interview with his mother.

"You were great with her," you comment as you're driving away from the Tilsons' house. Helena is in the passenger seat, and Pete is behind you, playing some game with cartoonish sound effects on his phone.

"Well, I am a parent," she replies. You don't question her use of the present-tense. "Christina was just younger than her."

"She reminded you of her?" You're trying to keep it light. You've only spoken to Helena about Christina twice before, and both times, you could see it eating away at her.

She's mentioned not having been in her right mind when she was bronzed, having been mad. You can't imagine all those years immobilized in a dark crowded room were particularly therapeutic.

"As much as any little girl that age." Helena sighs. "I had her when I was seventeen, you know."

"No," you answer. "I had no idea you were so young."

"Oh, hm," Helena replies. "You know when _The Time Machine_ was published, so I just assumed you'd done the math."

"It never occurred to me," you admit.

It seems obvious now. You've always known H.G. Wells was young when she wrote her first novel, and although Helena has never actually told you it was inspired by her own journey through time to save her daughter, the dots are not hard to connect.

"In those days, of course, a pregnancy out of wedlock meant social ostracism and the death of one's future prospects," she continues. "There was pressure to give her to a hospital so I could attempt to retake my place in civilized society, but I never had much interest in all that. Christina was, for years, my only companion."

You have a strong urge to reach over and take her hand, so you tighten your grip on the steering wheel.

You hear the off-key variant of Happy Birthday before you see the people crowded around the table. On your right, Pete is holding a cup of what appears to be orange drink. He and Leena, beside him, are the only two people wearing birthday hats. He's got wrinkles around his eyes and grey flecks in his hair, and the laugh lines around her mouth are more prominent. You spot Claudia, who looks more mature but not much older, with a man with a buzz cut that you don't recognize. Tracey and Kevin are slightly to your right. Tracey's hands rest on the shoulders of a teenager. Your mother is there, sitting down at the table with a walker in front of her. There are at least a dozen people, children and adults, whom you've never met.

At the other end of the table, Helena is standing beside Kate, smiling and singing, you suspect, intentionally flat. There is a cake in front of them with nine candles on it.

As the song winds down, you hold up your phone to record. Kate's entire body moves with her inhale. She blows out all the candles in one breath.

You're headed directly for a parked car at twenty-five miles an hour.

"Myka, snap out of it!" Pete is yelling, leaning forward in his seat to wave a hand in front of your face.

Helena's left hand is on the wheel, attempting to steer, despite the fact that she has, up to this point, steadfastly refused to learn how to drive.

"Shit," you gasp, directing the SUV away with only a couple of feet to spare.

Behind you, Pete sighs and rests his head on the back of your seat. "Good, you're back. Mind if I take it the rest of the way?"

"Not at all," you answer. You try to conceal the fact that your hands are shaking as you unbuckle your seatbelt.

"What's going on?" Helena asks. "What was that? Some sort of… fit?"

Pete raises his eyebrows at you expectantly as you pass him on your way to the back seat.

"It was nothing," you answer. "Nothing to worry about."

Helena turns to look at you. "Are you quite certain you're alright?"

"I'm fine," you answer. You can tell she wants to press the matter, but Pete interrupts.

"Everyone buckled up?" he calls. "Okay. Take two. H.G., crank some tunes."

You'll have to remember to thank him later.

* * *

You think Warehouse 2 is fascinating for about five minutes before it becomes a nightmare. Valda dies right in front of you, and you've performed enough death-defying stunts in the past two hours to wonder if maybe you should be getting hazard pay.

You've just entered a room with a head that looks like Medusa on the wall when you hear Helena call your name, only you're looking at Helena, and her mouth hasn't moved.

You're back at the Warehouse sitting at the table where Pete told you he wanted to ask Kelly to move in together, but the only other person here is Helena. She's standing on the other side of the table looking at you, waiting for something.

"Helena," you say. "What is it?"

"I know about your episodes," she says. "Pete told me."

"I asked him not to tell anyone," you mutter. You start to turn away, but Helena stops you.

"Myka," she says, looking for your eyes, "It's alright. I know what they are."

You look back at her. "You do?"

"Of course, I do." She smiles broadly. "I'm something of an expert on time travel."

You raise your eyebrows. "So you think it _is_ time travel?"

"Darling, I'm sure of it." Helena takes your hands. "It's real. All of it. You're seeing our future."

Before you have time to think about it, you're leaning in and kissing her. Her fingers are in your hair, thumbs brushing against your cheek bones. She sighs into your mouth and you wonder how you could have spent so long not knowing that this was exactly what you wanted. Everything about it feels right.

You pull away for a breath, and something catches your eye. There's a bright red exit sign above the door behind Helena.

"What's that?" you ask.

"What?" Helena breathes. Her breath is hot on your cheek and it takes all the strength you can must not to start kissing her again right there.

"That exit sign. It's new."

Helena glances over her shoulder so quickly you're not even sure she saw it.

"Oh, you know Artie." She rolls her eyes. "Paranoid. He probably added it in case there was a fire and we forgot where the door was in our panicked states."

She pulls you back in again, and you want more than anything to just relax into the kiss, but there's a feeling nagging at you. Something isn't right. You feel warm and complacent when there should be a million thoughts racing through your head.

Nothing is ever this easy.

You pull away again. Helena smirks at you.

"Will you get back here?"

"This isn't real," you murmur.

"I beg your pardon—"

"This isn't real," you say louder, and Helena fades away before your eyes. You're back in the room with the giant face. Its eyes are glowing red now, and the floor is crumbling away beneath your feet.

Pete and Helena are standing several yards from you, facing different directions and staring blankly ahead. You realize this wasn't just another flashforward at the least opportune time. This is the Warehouse.

"Pete?" you call. "H.G.?"

Neither of them react. You take three deep breaths and shift your weight back and forth between your feet, and then you jump to the section of floor where they're standing. The floor you were on crumbles away almost as soon as your feet leave the ground.

You stumble into Pete on landing and he jerks awake and stumbles back.

You reach for Helena. "H.G., H.G., wake up!"

She shrieks as you pull her away from the widening crevasse by her left arm. She's breathing loud and fast, and when she rounds on you, you can't tell whether she's more sad or angry.

"What did you do?" she yells.

"It's a… it's a soul test," you explain, still catching your own breath. "Okay? It tricked us. It took us to our happiest place and made us feel secure so we wouldn't notice…" you trail off and look back at the statue. "It's the Medusa. The Medusa!"

You wing your torch at its eye as hard as you can. You sort of miss and it bounces off the cheek, but the eyes spark and then burst into flames. The head recedes into the wall, revealing a passageway.

The three of you stand there, breathless, for a moment.

"Thanks," Pete finally manages. You smile at him and nod. "It's Kelly."

"What are you talking about?" you ask.

"She's the one," he tells you.

"Good."

"Yeah."

You chuckle for a moment, wishing you could be as confident about your vision as he is about his, and then you remember where you are, that you still have to get out of here alive.

"We should keep moving." Your hand brushes Helena's shoulder as you ascend the steps leading to the passage. "Helena?"

That's when you hear her sniffle.

You crouch down in front of the step where she's sitting. "Helena, are you alright?" you ask as you survey her for injuries.

"My baby," she murmurs through heavy tears, and your heart sinks.

 _Of course._

She shakes her head. "My little baby." She closes her eyes and bows her head.

You rest a hand on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry."

She takes a shaky breath. "It was so real."

"Mrs. Frederic is dying," you remind her. You move your hand to her base of her skull, just below her left ear. "If we don't do this, Warehouse 13 could die with her. That's real, and we have a chance to save her."

When she takes her next breath, her entire body moves with it. "Let's get this done."

* * *

When you and Pete find Helena, she's standing in front of a column with her back to you. You're so excited about the constellation puzzle that it takes you a moment to notice she isn't listening.

"Helena?"

She is silent for a moment, and you can see the muscles in her shoulders tensing.

"I do hope you can forgive me."

"For what?" you ask. You're still smiling, riding a high from Pete's stroke of genius.

She turns around and pulls her Tesla on you in one fluid, practiced motion. "This."

It reminds you forcefully of the first time you met her.

The Tesla is gone and she's smiling at you. Her bowtie is askew and she tosses her head to clear a strand of hair from her face. She rubs her thumbs across of your knuckles. Your cheeks are wet, and you are very aware of a ring on your left ring finger.

"—as the Deputy Commissioner of Marriage for the County of Pennington, I now pronounce you married under the laws of the state of South Dakota," the woman in the black robe behind the bench is saying. "You may kiss."

A wet giggle escapes your mouth when you open it, and you lean towards her.

A sharp zap of pain shocks you back to the present.


	4. Chapter 4

When Helena drives the trident into the ground, the earth shakes and dark clouds roll across the sky. A geyser nearby spouts a high stream of water.

You pick yourself up off the ground, your eyes on her. The staff of the trident sparks in her hands.

"You are lying to yourself!" you call to her. You pause for a moment to catch your breath, and you expect her to take the opportunity to argue, but she simply sneers at you. "You never wanted this. If you wanted to kill Pete and me, you would have done it at Warehouse 2 or in Paris, and Artie… you would have let him die in Russia, but you didn't."

She shakes her head. "I needed you to trust me."

"No, you needed us to stop you," you answer. "You wanted us to follow you and stop you. That's why you called Pete this morning. Think, Helena!"

She pulls the trident out of the ground, and you take another step toward her.

"You are so filled with grief and anger, but there is a part of you, I know it, there is some small part of your soul that—that knows that this is wrong. And—and—and that part is still alive, and it's just pushing to get through."

When the Regents take your report, you'll say you were stalling, but the truth is that you believe everything you're saying. You've seen Helena in the other timeline. You've seen her happy and in love despite everything she's been through. You believe in her.

She grimaces and shakes her head.

"Yes," you insist. "That's the part that refuses to kill the very people who can stop you."

You reach for her shoulder, but she catches your arm just below your watch and holds it up between you.

"No!" she cries. "Stay away from me!"

"Alright," you agree, your voice shockingly level considering how fast your heart is beating. "If I am wrong then kill me."

You thrust your sidearm into her hand. She scoffs and shakes her head as you fold her fingers around the grip.

"Do it!" You press the barrel against your own forehead. "I mean, we're all going to die anyway, right? So what's the difference?" She shakes her head again, and you know then that she won't do it.

"So shoot me," you tell her. You can feel tears coming to your eyes. You can hear them in your voice. "Shoot me now. Kill me," you take your own hand off the gun, "but not like that, not like a coward. I want you to look me in the eyes and Take. My. Life."

She adjusts her grip and then readjusts. Her breaths are fast and heavy and her jaw juts out defiantly, but you can see the doubt in her eyes.

"Come on," you say as her arm begins to shake. "Do it. Do it!"

She shrieks and throws the gun to the ground. She drops to her knees, head in her hands and rocks back and forth in rigid, jerky movements. You lunge for the trident.

Helena is sitting at a kitchen table, her head in her hands. Her clothes are wrinkled and hang off her body in a way that makes her look withered. Her tangled hair is pulled up into a ponytail that it's half fallen out of.

"You're up," you comment. You rest a hand on her shoulder and kiss the top of her head. "Coffee?"

She doesn't respond. She simply sits there, twisting her wedding band and staring absently toward the living room.

You kneel down beside her and cup the back of her neck with your hand.

"Hey," you say. "How are you?"

She turns to look at you. She doesn't look like she's been crying but the bags under her eyes are especially pronounced and you can't tell if she's looking at you or through you.

"You haven't been sleeping," you say.

"Have you?" Her voice sounds raw and unused.

"No," you admit.

"Do you ever feel like…" she pauses. "Do you ever feel like no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, everything is always going to be exactly the same?"

You move your hand down to rub circles on her back. "I can't imagine what it must be like to go through this twice."

She pinches the bridge of her nose between her fingers and squeezes her eyes shut.

"I'm not going to go through it twice."

"Helena…" you sigh, "what do you think about… about going to talk to someone? About all this."

Her hand drops to the table as she jerks her head toward you. "You mean go to some sort of… some sort of psychoanalyst?"

"Like a psychologist," you say. "We can both go. It'll be good for us."

"I don't want a stranger in my head," Helena answers stiffly. "I don't even want myself in my head these days."

"If you don't like it, we don't have to go back." You stand up and squeeze her shoulder on your way to the coffee machine. "Think about it."

You're still holding the trident when you come back. It's not sparking anymore, and if you hadn't just watched as it nearly jumpstarted a second ice age, you'd think it was just an old pipe.

Helena is still on her knees in the dirt, crying into her hand. She looks small, lost. You want to go to her, but you remember Artie. You rush to his side, watching her out of the corner of your eye. She doesn't look up.

* * *

It's hard for you to watch Pete go without telling him what you're about to do, but you've always hated emotional goodbyes.

You hear Mrs. Frederic's voice before you see her.

"I understand you wanted to see me."

She's standing where Pete was only seconds ago in a pink tweed jacket, smiling at you so genuinely that you know you can't possibly deserve it.

"Yeah, yes. Uh, would you…" you hold the letter out to her, "would you give this to Artie, please?"

She eyes the envelope as her smile disintegrates. "Myka…" You stare at each other in silence for a moment before she continues. "You can't blame yourself. It could have happened to any one of us."

"But it didn't," you answer. "It happened to me."

"You talked her down," Mrs. Frederic reminds you. "You saved us all."

"It should never have come to that," you insist. "I put the entire world in jeopardy. I can't… even conceive of that. I just know that I can't… I can't take that chance again. And neither can you."

She doesn't try to stop you when you turn to leave.

You don't stop until you're outside the Warehouse. You're too afraid that if you do, you won't be able to pick your feet up again. You turn back to look at it, your second home for the past two years.

Helena emerges from the Warehouse. She beams at you. You haven't seen her look so happy since your wedding.

Your back hurts and your feet are sore, and you feel like you're wearing a backpack strapped to your front, the way your classmates sometimes did in elementary school.

You hold your arms out to her. "Your last day!"

She wraps you in a hug. Her lips brush your cheekbone as she pulls away.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" you ask. "We can both stay. We can ask Artie to rotate our shifts. I'm sure—"

"Myka." Helena takes your hands and squeezes. "I chose this, remember? This will give me time to focus on my inventions and my writing. It feels like it's been a century since I've published anything."

She caresses your cheek as you laugh.

"Besides," she holds up her right hand and wiggles her fingers. The gold ring with the engraved eye of Horus glints in the sunlight, "It's not as though I'm washing my hands of this business entirely. And of course, I'll be available for consulting."

"But you won't be out in the field with us," you point out. "I know how you love," you throw on a bad British accent, " _the adventure of it all_."

You expect her to call you to poke fun at you, but instead she places a hand on your protruding abdomen. "A new adventure awaits."

She fades away and you're standing outside the Warehouse alone feeling empty. You turn and climb into your car.

You pack your things and leave before the rest of the team returns to Leena's.

* * *

Your first day with your parents is quiet. Your father is sitting in an armchair at the back of the shop reading a book when you arrive. He frowns and nods sharply at you, but doesn't say a word. Your mother offers you a chicken salad sandwich and hovers around the door of your childhood bedroom while you unpack.

"So, you decided to quit," your father comments at dinner. "Didn't have you pegged for a quitter."

"Warren…" your mother places a hand on his arm to stop him. She turns to look at you. "It can't be easy."

You throw her a stiff smile and concentrate on your pasta.

"How's that Pete?" you mother asks you. You can tell she's trying to help, but it feels like she reached into your chest and gave your heart a firm twist.

Plus, you know where this conversation is headed.

"He's fine," you answer shortly.

"I liked him," she adds, looking back at your father.

He nods. "Seemed like a good kid."

Your mother looks back at you. "Will he be visiting, Myka? We'd love to see him again."

You shrug. "I don't know. He can if he wants to, but honestly, Mom, he's probably pretty angry at me for leaving, so I wouldn't get your hopes up."

The gentle smile falls away from her face. "Why, honey? Did something happen between the two of you?"

"No," you answer firmly. "And nothing's going to. He just got out of a serious relationship."

It's a convenient excuse that saves you from having to explain that he's only ever been a friend, that that's all he will ever be.

If he still counts you as a friend, that is.

"Well, Myka, honey, that won't always be true," your mother points out.

You stop eating and look up at her. "Mom. He lives in Univille, South Dakota, okay? That's almost eight hours away. Nothing is going to happen between me and Pete."

"Well, I lived in Salt Lake City when I met your father," she says. She covers your hand with hers, and it's so obvious she thinks she's helping. It makes you wish Tracey was here to distract her with a story about how a cute boy from the baseball team asked her out today.

You turn back to your pasta.

"Leave her alone, Jeannie. She's an adult." Your father looks at you. "If she wants to run out on everything she's got going for her, that's her decision."

You fumble to unlock your phone, but the tears in your eyes make it difficult to see the screen. It takes you four tries.

The phone rings twice before you hear a woman with a British accent on the other end of the line.

"Myka? How did it go?"

"It was so bad," you sob. You rest your arm on top of the steering wheel and brace your forehead in your elbow.

"Are you alright? Do you need me to come down there?" Helena's voice is urgent, and you can tell that she's moving, maybe already halfway to where her suitcase sits in the back of her closet.

"No, no," you wave her off. "It's too far."

"I don't care. If I'm needed—"

"Helena, it's okay," you tell her sternly. "I just… I just needed to hear your voice."

"You're sure?" She sighs. You can hear the reluctance in her voice. "Would you like to talk about what happened?"

You shake your head, but it feel like it's spilling out of you.

"They hate me," you whisper.

You hear a sharp intake of breath. "Did they tell you that?"

"He might as well have." You take a deep, shaky breath. "She didn't say anything the whole time."

You get up from the table and pick up your plate.

"Myka?" your mother says. "You barely touched your spaghetti. Are you feeling alright? I know it's your favorite."

Spaghetti hasn't been your favorite since you were fourteen years old.

"I'm fine, Mom," you answer. "I'll have the rest for lunch tomorrow."

You stretch saran wrap over the top of your bowl and shove it into the refrigerator. You rush through the apartment to your childhood bedroom and collapse on your twin bed. You take deep breaths and try not to cry.

It feels awfully familiar.

* * *

Seeing Helena again nearly kills you. She's more regretful than you've ever seen her. As angry as you've been at her for the past month and a half, now that she's standing right in front of you, the only emotion you can muster is sadness.

You pack to go back to the Warehouse the next day.

Your room is exactly the same as you left it. You suspect that Leena left it intact with the foresight that you would be back. She always seems to know things like that.

Claudia insists on running as many of your boxes up the stairs as she can, until she collapses, spread-eagle on your bed breathing so loudly you can hear her outside your room, and you finish moving your things back in with Pete and Steve.

You like Steve, you decide. If Pete is the old brother who antagonizes you constantly, Steve is the younger brother who stays up with you late into the night, talking about life. He looks familiar, but you can't place him.

His room being there spares you from having to look at the empty expanse of wall where Helena's room used to be.

On the night you arrive back at Leena's after finishing your first case back together, Pete taps on your door. You look up from the dusty copy of _The Color Purple_ you took from your bookshelf as you were packing. You read it for a tenth grade English project.

He sits down on the corner of your mattress. "Hey."

You raise your eyebrows. "Hey."

"So, you moved back in with your parents." He leans back on his hands.

You sigh. "Pete, if you're here to make fun of me, I'm really not—"

"No, no." He holds up one of his hands, his palm facing you. "Just must have sucked. That's all."

"Oh," you say. "Yeah, it did."

"Listen, Myka…" he sighs and looks away from you, toward the grainy black and white photograph of a large, ovular object suspended over a field that's been hanging on the wall next to your closet since you first moved in the first time. The mysterious relics from cases that predate you are part of what makes Leena's Leena's. Pete has a painting of a large crater in the middle of what looks like medieval Warsaw in his room.

"I know we haven't really… we haven't had a chance to talk about what happened. With H.G."

You stiffen.

"Not that we have to," he rushes to add. "But I know you haven't talked about it with anyone here, which means you haven't talked about it, so if you want to…"

"Pete, it's…" You look away, over toward your window. "It's not that easy."

"Look, I know you guys were close," Pete says. "And I know you went to bat for her with the Regents and Artie and she threw it back in your face—"

"Are you trying to rub it in?"

"It must have been bad," Pete says. "And I know, if it was me, I'd want to talk about it, but if you want me to leave, you just say the word."

You sit there for a moment, thinking, because you want to tell him about all the thoughts that you haven't been about to get out your head for the past month and a half, but you don't want to actually say it.

But Pete is your best friend.

You sigh and move to sit next to him. You're silent for a moment, and you can feel him watching you.

"Remember when we were in Warehouse 2?" you ask. "When the head of Medusa sent us to our happiest places?"

"Yeah, I was with Kelly, telling her about the job," Pete replies. "And you were here with Artie—"

"No," you interrupt. "I wasn't. I lied." You take a deep breath. "I was with Helena."

"Mykes…" Pete rests his hand on your back.

"She told me I was… that my flashforwards… she told me I really was seeing the future," you admit. "And we were really going to… that when I see us together… that it was real."

His arm crawls around your shoulders, and he pulls you into his side. You lean forward and bury your face in your hands, take your deep breaths. You don't want to cry in front of Pete.

"I wanted it to be real," you whisper, your voice thick.

He sighs and squeezes your shoulder. You feel a dry sob rip through your chest. It hurts your throat.

"I _really_ wanted it to be real," you admit. "But I was so caught up in… I didn't want to think about it. What it would mean."

You take a long, shaky breath. You don't hear him breath at all.

"I'm gay, Pete."

"Yeah," he breathes in a way that makes you think this might not be coming as a surprise to him. "Well, like I said Mykes, you're my partner. I've got your back."

You nod mutely.

He jostles you a little. "So what about Sam?"

You shake your head. "I thought I wanted him. I wanted to want him. I mean, he was perfect, and I should have wanted him, and could never figure out…" You pause, take a breath, and start over. "Loving him was never as effortless as loving her, even when it should have been. Even when he was doing everything right. And… when I kissed him, it was nothing like kissing her. It didn't feel so… it didn't feel like anything."

"You kissed her?" You can hear the smile in his voice. "You've been holding out on me."

"Twice," you admit. "In the other timeline."

"And?" he asks conspiratorially.

A wet laugh bubbles out of you. "It was amazing."

* * *

"So, Stevie, you must have had a good time in high school, huh?"

You're walking through the Warehouse with Pete and Steve on your way to target practice.

"Steve," Steve says. "What makes you say that?"

"Oh, you know, good looking guy like you," Pete answers. "Athletic. The ladies must have been all over you. What did you play? Football?"

"Baseball," Steve answers.

"Oh, a baseball player," Pete says. "So you're fast. I was a wrestler, myself. Not a lot of speed, but a lot of flexibility. The chicks dug it." He mock-whispers the last sentence over Myka's head.

"My ex certainly appreciated it," Steve says.

"An ex!" Pete bats him in the arm. "Tell me about her. What was her name?"

"You don't have to answer that," you begin. "He's just being—"

"Brian," Steve says.

Pete's eyebrows fly up almost into his hairline. "Brian? As in…"

"As in gay." Steve nods.

"Oh." Pete casts you a significant look.

 _Me too_ , you want to say, but the words get caught in your throat. You heart is racing like you've just sprinted a mile.

"Oh my god! Gay?" Pete exclaims after an unnaturally long pause where he was clearly waiting for you to say something. "Finally! Thank god there's someone to appreciate all this." He gestures down his body. "It's a waste of time working out for these people." He jabs his thumb at Myka. "Here, I'll take my shirt off—"

"No!" Steve throws up his hand to block Pete from view. "No, thanks."

"Nah, hey, anytime, man," Pete replies. "You know, I spend a lot of time on, you know, the guns and the pack, and I, you know—"

You grimace as Steve begins to speak again.

"Pete, I'm really good. I'm good, really."

"No, dude, I'm straight. It's cool, man," Pete says. "Take—take it in."

"Pete," you grind through clenched teeth. "Put. Your shirt. Back on."

"Anytime," he repeats as he pulls the shirt back over his head.

Steve shakes his head.

"You weren't subtle about your thing for H.G," Claudia is telling you. You're sitting around a the table at Leena's with Leena, Pete, and Steve. Outside, you can just see the last vibrant colors of sunset above the trees.

"H.G.?" Steve asks.

Claudia claps him on the arm. "That's another story for another dinner, buddy."

"You guys have only been here two years longer than me, right?" Steve asks. "I can't possibly have missed that much."

"Oh, but this story deserves a dinner all to itself," Pete says. "Spoiler alert: H.G. Wells is basically a comic book supervillain."

"And a woman, I take it," Steve nods towards you. "They didn't teach us that in AP English."

"And get this." Claudia jumps in, barely able to contain her excitement. "The time machine is real. We used it."

"And the sixties were a disaster," Pete adds. "In more ways than one."

You shudder. "I felt like I needed a shower to wash off all the men who touched me without asking."

You feel a little breathless, a little shell shocked, although you're not sure why.

"The Warehouse was bustling though," Pete says. "They must have had ten agents. Of course, the Cold War, you know. It was a lot more intense back then."

Someone claps you on the shoulder, and you feel your thoughts being jerked back to the present.

"Come on," Pete says to you. "Target practice."

* * *

"None of these… none of these explain what happened between us."

You're pushing blond hair out of your eyes and staring down at the list of Warehouse disturbances on your tablet.

"Look, we aren't the first platonic friends to ever get wasted and… and end up in bed together," Pete tells you.

"I would never do that," you insist. "I… God, I don't think of you that way. You… you know that."

"And I don't think of you that way either," Pete says. "It's just… you're my partner and—and—and my best friend, okay? And nothing's going to change that. Not even us… having sex and forgetting about it, okay? So let's just—let's just forget about it. Deal?"

You're naked, back in a bed, but you're in a room at the B&B that isn't yours.

When you roll over, Helena is lying beside you, still asleep.

Seeing her feels like a punch in the gut.

You reach over and run your fingers up her arm. She blinks awake. When she sees you, she smiles.

"Hi," you say. You sound like some nineteen-year-old after their first lay, and it makes you want to cringe, but your face seems incapable of doing anything other than grinning.

Helena doesn't seem to mind. She slips her arm around your waist and scoots closer to you. When she leans in to kiss you, it's slow and lazy and not at all how you want to be kissing her, but you suppose in this timeline, the two of you have all the time in the world.

You feel her try to nudge you onto your back, but you push on top of her instead. She smiles into your mouth.

"Is that how it's going to be?"

On the bedside table, Helena's phone buzzes. You sigh as you pull away and lean over to grab it and hand it to her.

"Artie," she breathes. "We must have a ping."

"Leave it," you say. "They can handle one intake without us."

Helena smirks up at you. "Myka, what has gotten into you."

"You."

It's a joke that Pete will high-five you for if you ever tell him, which you probably will because he's sort of like a ninth-grade girl in his desire for _Details, Myka_ , and because he's your best friend and you tell him everything eventually.

"Another flashforward?" Pete's voice is grim.

You shake your head. "Yes, she was there, and no, I don't want to talk about it. Pete…" You don't know how to ask the question you need to. "If we did… if something did happen… what do you think that means for me?"

"You mean because of the…" he makes a vague gesture with her hands that looks like it might be fireworks, "gay thing?"

You nod.

"I think it means that you're getting over a recent heartbreak and you got hammered and slept with someone you wish you hadn't." He squeezes your shoulder. "Happens to the best of us."

"You don't think—" you begin, but something over your shoulder catches his eye. He swallows.

"I found Steve."


	5. Chapter 5

You wonder if you could ever see yourself getting married somewhere like this. It's gorgeous of course, and Amanda is confident enough to fill the entire ballroom, but you don't think you'd want something this flashy. You think you'd like something more than the courthouse where you married Helena in the other timeline, but nothing big. Maybe a simple ceremony at Leena's with people from the Warehouse. Your sister could come up, maybe your parents, if they were willing.

But, you remind yourself, you can't get married at Leena's. You'd have to go to Iowa, like some sort of criminal. It's a six-hour drive to Sioux City. That's a long way to make everyone travel, and Tracey would probably have to fly. It wouldn't be practical to have everyone there.

It might be a good excuse to have a destination wedding, but you're a little too frugal for that. This is all a moot point anyway. Helena is being held by the Regents indefinitely, and Univille isn't known for its vibrant queer scene.

The other you must have been born into a completely different world.

"Western marriage was an institution invented bind a woman's identity to her husband and ensure that she not attain any degree of independence," Helena says. "In many instances, it was essentially treated as a property transaction. Why would anyone rally to subject themselves to an institution with that history?"

You still have half an hour until Pete and Claudia roll out of their beds and dress at lightning speed to get to the Warehouse, and you and Steve are too glued to the screen to make conversation, so the B&B is silent except for Helena and the sounds of the morning news.

"It's complicated," you murmur, but you're not really listening.

The ribbon at the top of the television screen shows JUNE 26 – 8:01 MT – DOW 105.34 – 67° F. OFFICIAL: 27 KILLED IN ATTACK ON TUNISIAN BEACH RESORT.

You're stomach turns unpleasantly, like you're on a fast elevator.

"I'm receiving word that we are going to get a decision on marriage equality." The screen switches from the footage people fleeing from an explosion to the news studio. You hear Steve take a sharp breath in. "We're going to go to our Ari Melber right now. Ari, I would imagine people are running behind you at the Supreme Court steps."

The footage cuts to a man standing on the steps of the Supreme Court.

"Has your Supreme Court finally become a mechanism through which justice is done?" Helena asks disinterestedly. "When I went into the bronze, they were upholding racial segregation and denying women the right to vote."

"Shhhh," you answer.

"Sometimes," Steve replies.

"Tom, as I'm speaking to you from the Supreme Court, we have, read from the bench, there is a right to marriage equality. I repeat, there is a right to marriage equality, read just from the bench now."

You drop your head into your hands and take your deep breaths. You hear Steve's hiss of delight to your left and Helena's grunt of acknowledgement to your right.

"Cool, okay, well, I'm going to go for a run before work." Steve claps you on the back, and you feel his weight lift off the couch.

"I'm going to go take a shower before Claudia and Pete get up," you say, because you're definitely going to cry; you can feel it coming, but you'll be damned if you're going to do it in front of anyone.

Amanda and her fiancé are saying their I do's when you return. Pete leans over to you.

"Wish I had your quirk. Weddings are boring. Hope you had fun, whenever you were."

* * *

"Pete, you're being completely unreasonable—"

You suck Helena back into the sphere midsentence.

"Oh, one of my short stories is in there," Pete says with an imitation of a British accent that makes him sound like he's voicing the grandmother from Red Riding Hood in front of a dozen four-year-olds. "That woman ruins everything."

"Pete, I'm back," you tell him.

"Look, Myka, I just—"

"No, I came back," you repeat.

"It still doesn't change the fact that…" he trails off, gesturing to where Helena was standing and looking frustrated. At first, you think he might be waiting for you to speak, but then he adds, "I hate what she did to you."

You recoil. "What are you talking about?"

"I hate…" He pauses. When he speaks again, his voice is lower. "I hate how bad she hurt you."

It takes you a moment to answer because it's not what you expected to hear, but it should have been. Pete has always been like your brother.

A bell tinkles and a door slams to your left. You look up at the book you're reading, _Great Expectations._

You're in a bookshop. It looks like your father's, except that it's more cluttered and the books around you are considerably more battered.

"I'm not going to homecoming," Kate announces as she brushes past you, her face hidden behind a curtain of unruly hair that almost reaches her chin.

"What?" You lower your book. "We already bought you a dress."

"I don't care."

You hear her stomp up the steps toward your office.

"What happened?" you ask.

"Nothing!" she calls. "When's Mama going to be home?"

"It's Thursday," you answer. "She has office hours."

You hear a longsuffering sigh. You bite the inside of your cheek and wish Helena was here. She's always been better at talking to Kate when she's upset.

You mark your place and leave your book on the counter.

"Kate?" you call as you follow her up the stairs. You stop in the doorway of your office. She's sitting at your desk. She ducks her head so you can't see her face, but you can hear her sniffling.

She gets that from you.

You kneel down beside the chair. "What happened?"

"Nothing," she insists.

"Well, it's not nothing," you say. "You couldn't wait for this dance this morning."

"I just changed my mind, okay?" she says. "God, why does everything always have to be such an ordeal in this family?"

"Is this about David?" you ask.

"No," Kate answers, but she's crying harder now. She brushes her eyes with the sleeve of her Rangeview High School Marching Band hoodie. WELLS-BERING is printed in white block letters across her shoulder blades.

"Kate," you say.

"He broke up with me," she sobs.

"Oh, Kate, I'm so sorry." You wrap your arm around her and pull her to you. To your surprise, she lets you without complaint.

"He says he likes Charlotte Kamp now," she tells you as you rub her arm.

You're standing in front of the barn in Ohio again. Pete still has his arms crossed and his back to you. You don't think he noticed you were gone.

"I'm okay," you tell him gently. "I appreciate your concern, but I can take care of myself."

He turns back to you. "But how am I supposed to like her when she—"

"No one asked you to like her," you interrupt. "All I'm asking you to do is be civil. She's trying to help. Have you seen her, Pete? She knows she screwed up. She's paying for it. And I'm still here. If I can work with her after everything that's happened, so can you."

Pete nods. "Okay. Okay, I'm sorry."

"Me too," you reply.

* * *

It's harder to say goodbye to Helena than you thought it would be. You expected the knowledge that she isn't really here to soften the blow. As it turns out, the fact that you can't touch her makes it worse.

"We did make a good team… didn't we?" She looks so sad when she asks you that you want to reach out and lay a hand on her arm. Instead, you have to smile and nod.

"We did. And then you…" You trail off and look at her. You see her take a breath like she's preparing for the brunt of your anger, like she's willing to take it.

You keep having to remind yourself that she tried to destroy the world, and if you had any anger left to give, she would deserve it.

But you're not angry anymore. You're just sad.

"I just wish you would have realized that sooner," you finish.

"So do I," she tells you, as earnestly as you've ever heard her say anything, and god, you want to hug her so badly. You want to brush her hair behind her ear and cup the base of her jaw. Anything.

Helena brushes a damp strand of hair away from your sweaty forehead. You're groggy and sore and far too hot to be under all these blankets.

"How are you feeling?" she asks.

You groan. "As awful as I look."

"Nonsense. You're beautiful," Helena murmurs. She brushes her fingers over your cheek and then smiles at the bundle in your arms. "And so is she."

"She looks like a potato," you moan.

"Yeah," Pete says from your other side. "But the cutest potato I've ever seen."

Helena looks up at Pete. "Claudia?"

You drop your head to the side to look at him too.

"She's fine." He nods. "She's… adjusting.

"And Mrs. Frederic?" you ask.

Pete sighs. "Gone. Just like she said she would be."

Helena nods decisively. "It was what she wanted. Outliving one child was nearly too much to tolerate. I cannot imagine watching all of my grandchildren die." She leans down and presses a kiss to your forehead. "I thought I was going to die when I gave birth, you know."

"Thank god for the epidural," you breathe. "Never again."

"Quite right," Helena agrees. "We have our miracle." She pulls the yellow knit blanket away from the baby's face. "Isn't that right Catherine?"

"Myka? Are you alright?" Helena is asking when you find yourself back in the deep stacks of the Warehouse.

"Yeah," you answer. You shake your head to clear it. "I was just thinking. We could have…" You hesitate and then shake your head again. "Never mind."

She opens her mouth to press, but Pete comes up behind her. You can see her holding her breath, waiting to be yelled at again, but he flashes her a quick, reluctant smile.

"Good work out there."

She nods at him in disbelief.

You don't look away from her as you reach for the sphere and twist the top half to activate it.

"Goodbye, Helena."

* * *

"Pete, I need you to stay here."

You don't even look back at him before you make a hard left through the mint.

You're not sure whether he'll come after you. Normally he would, but this hasn't been a normal field assignment, and he has been extremely accommodating.

When he does chase you though, you aren't surprised.

"Myka. Myka. Myka!" he calls after you. When you don't turn, he grabs your arm to stop you.

The two of you are standing in an empty hallway on the second floor in front of a poster that says, _Welcome GLBT Visitors to Denver, the Mile High City._ When you first arrived, Pete had pointed at it and said, "Look, Mykes, they missed you."

"What?" he asks. You hate how hurt he looks.

"Look, I know that I can't make you stay here, but I can beg you to," you tell him in one breath, because you're in a hurry and you'll be damned if anyone else is going to die because you were late.

"Wha—why?" he asks. "No one has your back like I do."

"I know. It's just…" You look at him, and you want him to understand without you having to say it, but he just shakes his head at you. "Look, the last time I got a tip to nab Leo, my partner ended up—" You break off.

He drops his eyes to your feet and sighs, and you know now that he gets it.

"I could never recover from that," you admit without meeting his eyes.

Pete reaches toward your neck, straightens your collar and centers your string of pearls. "Look at you, Mykes. You look great. You want me to lint-brush your pants again?"

You shake your head, but then you twist around to look at the back of your pants. "Why? Do I need it?"

Pete laughs. "You are so lint-free, it's like you just came out of the box. Oh, and I checked on your lightbulb thing. They won't let us do it here, but we can do it in the parking lot."

"We are not leaving broken glass in the parking lot," you hiss.

"Relax, relax. I brought a broom and dust pan. It'll be fine." He rubs your arm. "Nervous?"

You smile, wide and toothy like in your tenth grade school picture.

"No. Excited."

"Good, good." He brushes off the shoulders of your jacket and tugs on your lapels. "I was ready to run before my wedding. Well, not before, because I was wasted, but the next morning."

You rest your hands on his chest for a moment, gathering your thoughts, and then you pull him into a hug.

"Thank you for doing this," you whisper.

"Hey, I am honored to be your maid of honor." He chuckles. "And if you had an aisle, I would be proud to walk you up it."

You sigh as you pull away. "They're not here, huh?"

He shoves his hands in his pocket. "I saw your sister out there."

You nod and try to smile.

"Hey, hey, hey," Pete says. "It's your wedding day." He points to the door of the room you're in. "Right across that hall, there is a one hundred and fifty-two-year-old woman who is totally psyched to marry you, and if you wait any longer, she might just turn into dust."

A laugh ripples out of you. Pete claps his hand together and points at you with both index fingers.

"There she is. Let's go get you married, huh? And try not to say those vows too slow, because I am ready for some of that cake I saw in the trunk."

"You were gone just then," Pete says to you as you blink back into focus in the mint building. "Are you sure you're up for this? What if it happens again when you're in there with Leo?" He pauses. "You're not the only one who would never recover."

You smile and rest your hand on his arm. "I'll be fine, okay? You've got to trust me on this. Besides, Zach and Jim will be there. It's not like I'm going in alone."

He heaves a deep sigh. "Alright, alright," he agrees reluctantly. "This once, for you. But take him down, okay? And fast."

* * *

You jump when Pete claps you on the shoulder. "Still waiting to talk to the FBI?"

You nod. "Zach's still in with them."

You're standing in front of the glass case where Sam's picture sits. He's smiling out at you, looking just like he did the day you met him.

From the day that picture was taken, he had just under four years to live.

"I thought it would be easier coming back here," you admit, "now that I know it never would have worked out between us." You sigh. "But it didn't change anything. He was still my partner, and I still loved him."

You've cried more times in front of Pete this last week than you've cried in front of another person since you were ten years old.

He jostles your shoulder affectionately. "Of course, you did. Doesn't have to be romantic to be important." He chuckles. "You know, maybe it's because you've been head over heels for one H.G. Wells for the last… well, forever, but I'm having a hard time picturing you dating a guy."

You laugh and cross your arms. "You know, when I look back on it, it seems so obvious that I was, you know…" you lower your voice, "gay… because I was never really me when I was with him. I was… I was the person I thought I was supposed to be, you know? How I saw girls act with their boyfriends back in college. But it was never really me."

Pete squeezes your shoulder.

"It felt like I was suffocating," you remember. "Here was this thing, and it was perfect. There was no reason I shouldn't want it, but I couldn't make it feel right. At the time, I thought maybe it was because I'd never really dated anyone seriously before. And then weeks turned into months and I guess Sam wanted me to move in with him, and I still wasn't sure why our relationship didn't feel like it was supposed to. I wanted…" you take a deep breath, "I wanted so badly for it to feel like a normal relationship."

"Mommy, what's gay?"

"What?"

You lower your book, _The Hound of the Baskervilles_ , and look at Kate. She's sitting on a stool at the front desk of your bookshop, drawing a picture that you think is supposed to be a lion and a monkey.

"What's gay?" she repeats without looking up.

"It's…" You pause, trying to decide how best to explain it. "It's when a woman falls in love with other women or a man falls in love with other men."

"Oh," she replies. "Like you and Mama."

"Like me," you agree. "Mama's actually bisexual. That's when someone can fall in love with a woman or a man."

"Am I gay?" Kate asks.

You cock your head to the side. "Why do you ask?"

"Because you're my mom," she says. "My friend, Anna, has dark skin like her mom, and I have curly hair like you. Am I gay like you too?"

"Um, I don't know, honey," you answer. "You might be, or you might be bisexual like Mama, or straight like Uncle Pete. Only you can know the answer to that." You ruffle her hair, all soft, brown curls. It's growing back in so nicely.

"Is it bad?"

Your stomach twists unpleasantly. "No, of course not. Why would you think that?"

Kate shrugs. "When Michael O'Conner pushed Jake Rubenfeld at recess yesterday, he said it was because he was gay."

"What did the recess monitor do?" you ask, your tone carefully neutral.

"He didn't get to go out for second recess," Kate answers. "Why did he push him if it's not bad?"

"Some people like to be mean to other people for things that aren't bad," you tell her. "When I was your age, I got made fun of because my hair was curly, even though that's not bad either. It just means they like to feel like they're better than everyone else."

"Oh, okay."

She hasn't stopped coloring this entire time, and you wonder what it's like to grow up thinking that these are easy conversations. You remember asking your father a similar question when you were twelve, after finding a copy of _Angels in America_ at the new Barnes and Noble. He'd told you not to worry about it and walked off muttering about chain stores undermining the community.

"Agent Bering?"

You jump.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." The man holding his hand out to you is wearing a suit with a red tie and wire-rimmed glasses. "I'm Agent Moffat. I'll be taking your statement."

"I'll be right here," Pete calls after you. "Break a leg!"

* * *

It slips out when you're talking to Claudia and Steve and Leena at dinner that evening. Artie is still holed up with a bad cold, thankfully, because you know telling him would trigger a conversation about Helena that you're not ready to have.

Claudia is just finishing a story about the Civil War reenactment they were at while you were busy with your emotional crisis.

"Sounds like you two had a busy couple of days," Pete comments.

"Yeah, you looked really busy this afternoon," you add, entirely sarcastically. You'd stopped by the Warehouse to pick up a file just before five, and they'd been bouncing a rubber ball that looked like it came out of the vending machine at the supermarket back and forth.

"You were in Denver, right?" Steve asks. "How was that? What were you working on? You left in a hurry."

You have to remind yourself that Steve doesn't know your history.

"Yeah, it was an open case from when Myka was posted in at the mint," Pete answers. "Her white whale, sort of."

You consider commenting on the unexpected literary reference, but Steve speaks first.

"Cool. You get the guy?"

"Yeah, and get this." Pete pauses dramatically. "He was using an artifact that stopped time for forty-seven seconds."

"Why forty-seven?" Steve asks.

"I don't know," Pete answers. "Who do I look like? Artie?"

"Wait," Claudia cuts in. "You got the guy who killed Sam?"

You hesitate, and then nod. "Yeah, and the Secret Service agent he was working for."

Claudia recoils. "So it was an inside job? Harsh."

Leena reaches over and rests a hand on your forearm. "I'm glad you got some closure, Myka. It's about time something good happened to you."

"Wait, am I missing something?" Steve asks. "Who's Sam?"

"He was my partner," you explain. "He was killed in action about a year before I was assigned to the Warehouse."

"Wow." Steve furrows his brow. "That must have been a really tough case."

Pete lets out a low whistle. "You don't know the half of it."

You roll your eyes. "It was, but…" you nod a Leena, "it's nice to finally have closure. It gave me a chance to come to terms with everything I did back then."

"You mean the dating your partner stuff." You can tell Claudia regrets it as soon as she says it. Her hand flies to her mouth, and she glances over at Steve, who has his eyebrows raised.

"Yes," you answer quickly, although it's not true, because you've just realized the corner you backed yourself into.

Steve narrows his eyes at you. "You're lying."

You feel Pete's hand on your shoulder, but he's looking at Steve. "Let it go."

Steve shrugs. "Sure. Just seems like a weird thing to lie about."

Leena eyes you apprehensively, like she's not sure whether jumping to your defense would make things worse."

"Oh my god." Claudia's mouth drops open as her eyes skip back and forth between you and Steve. "Did something else happen. Let me guess. You cheated on him with his best friend. His brother." She slaps her hand to her chest and gasps dramatically. "Your boss!"

"I'm gay, okay?"

It falls out of your mouth like vomit. Immediately, you can feel yourself brushing. Pete's hand tightens on your shoulder.

The table has gone silent. Leena is smiling at you reassuringly.

"Sam was the only guy I seriously dated," you continue shakily. "And it was…" You shake your head. "It gave me a change to come to terms with why it never felt right and… and why I did it anyway."

The few seconds it takes them to respond feel like a year. Your heart is beating in your ears. You tell yourself you're being ridiculous. Steve is gay, and he's Claudia's best friend. Leena probably already knows. She always seems to know things about you before you tell her.

Steve raises his eyebrows even higher. Claudia's eyes widen, but she recovers quickly, and then she's nodding like you're giving her a book recommendation.

Leena is the first to speak. "I'm glad you told us."

You look at Steve. "Do you remember what that was like? Did you ever try to date women?"

Steve shakes his head sympathetically. "Actually, no. I came out in high school. The only girlfriend I ever had was in eighth grade, and it lasted three weeks. But I can imagine."

"I knew something was up," Claudia tells you with a smirk on her face. "I mean, I figured probably bi, what with Sam and all, but you weren't subtle about your thing for H.G."

"H.G.?" Steve asks.

Claudia claps him on the arm. "That's another story for another dinner, buddy."

"You guys have only been here two years longer than me, right?" Steve asks. "I can't possibly have missed that much."

"Oh, but this story deserves a dinner all to itself," Pete says. "Spoiler alert: H.G. Wells is basically a comic book supervillain."

"And a woman, I take it." Steve nods at you. "They didn't teach us that in AP English."

You still feel too lightheaded to respond.

"And get this." Claudia jumps in, barely able to contain her excitement. "The time machine is real. We used it."

You're scrambled enough that you don't realize where you've heard this conversation before until you're lying in bed that night.


	6. Chapter 6

"So, there's a chance I'm seeing the future."

Pete sits up and flips on the lamp on his nightstand. He rubs his eyes. His hair is sticking up in every direction, and he's not wearing a shirt.

"What?" he yawns.

You close the door behind you and perch on the edge of his bed, against the mound in the comforter where his legs are.

"I might be seeing the future," you repeat.

He yawns again. He's still blinking the sleep out of his eyes. "What time is it."

You glance at the clock on the nightstand. "Three."

"This can't wait until morning?" he asks.

"No, Pete, you're not hearing me," you answer. "I might be _seeing the future_."

"Yeah, yeah," Pete grumbles. "You know, Mykes, two years ago that might have gotten a rise out of me. Now I'm not even surprised."

He flops back against his pillows.

You jiggle his shoulder. "Pete."

He sighs. "You're not going to let me go back to sleep until we talk this out, are you?"

You smile at him and shake your head. "You know me too well."

"Okay, okay." He sits back up. "Why do you think you're seeing the future? Last time we talked about it, you were pretty sure it was some other timeline."

"That conversation we had at dinner, the part about Helena," you tell him. "I've had that conversation with you guys before, back when Steve first started at the Warehouse."

"You had a flashforward of that conversation?" Pete asks, his eyebrows raised.

You nod.

He exhales slowly through his mouth. "But you said you saw yourself marrying H.G.," he says. "How can that be possible if the Regents have her locked up?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's not a life sentence," you suggest. "Maybe they let her go."

"H.G. Wells," Pete says. "You think they'd just let her go?"

You shrug. "Maybe she makes some sort of deal."

"Okay, Myka, listen." He rests a hand on your arm. "I get that you're excited about the idea that you and her could have a future together. I get that, okay? I remember how excited I was when I found out I could tell Kelly about the Warehouse. But you have to be rational about this. Is it possible that the same conversation could happen in two different timelines?"

You furrow your brow. "I don't know. There are an infinite number of timelines, but the chances that we'd have the exact same conversation in the same place, at the same time of day? I don't even know how to figure that."

"We'd have to ask Artie," Pete says, and you shake your head. "Or… H.G., if she wasn't indisposed. Or…" he looks up at you. "What about Claudia?"

Four minutes later, you and Pete are sitting on Claudia's bed shaking her awake.

"What—" She swats at your hand, still half asleep. "What's happening? What time is it?" She rolls her head to the side and catches a glimpse out the window. "It's still dark out."

"I know," you answer. "Sorry."

"Not sorry enough, or you wouldn't have done it." She rubs her eyes with the heels of her palms. "There'd better be a good reason for this."

"Claud," Pete says. "Myka's about to blow your mind."

Claudia groans as she pushes herself upright. "I doubt that. We've all been working at the same place for three years, right?"

Pete bumps you on the shoulder. "See? I'm not the only one who's gotten used to—" he holds his hands up and wiggles his fingers—"endless wonder."

"Well, since I've been working here, I've been seeing into another timeline," you explain. "Or, well, that's what I thought—"

"Hold up. Seeing into another timeline?" Claudia raises her eyebrows.

"I've been having these… visions, sort of. We—Pete and I—have been calling them flashforwards, but they feel more like memories. You guys are in some of them, but we're all older. I thought I was seeing my future in some other timeline, but tonight, when we were talking at dinner… I've had that conversation before."

"So we were wondering," Pete continues, although Claudia looks like she's still digesting everything you've told her, "what the chances are that that conversation could happen exactly the same way in two timelines."

"Am I seeing my own future?" you ask.

"Wow, um, okay." Claudia nods. "I'm still getting past the part where you thought you were popping into a parallel universe for visits and you didn't tell me for three years. Does Artie know about this?"

"No," you answer. "And he's not going to."

"Mrs. F?"

You shake your head.

"Fine, okay. Well, there's an infinite number of timelines out there," Claudia begins. "So yeah, we probably do have that conversation the same way in an infinite number of timelines, but that infinite number is miniscule…" she holds her fingers barely apart to demonstrate, "compared to the infinite number where we don't. So the real question isn't, 'Have we had this conversation in other timelines?' It's, 'What are the chances that, out of all the timelines where you exist, you're seeing one of the ones where we do?'"

"So it's more likely that I'm seeing the future?" you ask.

"Well, that opens up the question of whether it's more likely that you're seeing this universe than any other universe," Claudia answers. "I assume it's easier to transcend time within one universe than to travel into another, but we don't know what's causing this. We've seen a couple of time-altering artifacts, but we haven't encountered one that allows us to pass between universes yet. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist—"

"So you don't know," Pete says.

Claudia throws up her hands. "I don't know." She taps you on the knee with the back of her hand. "So what do you see in these… flashforwards? What am I up to?"

"You stay at the Warehouse," you tell her, despite the voice in the back of your mind telling you that, if there's a chance you're looking into the future, maybe you shouldn't. "You age really well. I've been to times when I have grey hair and you still look like you're in your early thirties."

"Hey, good for you, Claud." Pete pushes at her shoulder.

Claudia goes white as a sheet and shoos you both out of the room before you can ask why.

* * *

H.G. Wells is the last thing you expect to find at a high school in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Even less expected is that she is speaking with an American accent and claims she has no idea who you are.

Her driver's license says Emily Lake.

Helena never learned how to drive.

Pete studies you out of the corner of his eye after you've loaded Helena—Emily—into the back of the SUV and climbed into the passenger seat.

"You good?" he asks.

You pull your lips into a tight smile and nod. You're not good, and Pete probably knows that, but he also knows that you can't go into detail in front of her.

"You going to…" He makes a motion with his hand that you understand is supposed to represent a flashforward.

You shrug. "I can't feel it before it happens."

It always did happen more around her though.

Pete turns the key and the engine roars to life. He twists around in his seat to look at Emily.

"Where to?"

"What's it like to live in a city?"

Kate's voice is weak and she sounds like she has something stuffed under her tongue.

You're sitting in a chair in a hospital room leaning on the edge of a bed. Helena is across the mattress from you, doing the same. Kate is propped up on a pillow, clutching a trashcan to her chest. She looks pale and tired and far too thin. It's dark out, and you can tell from the hushed noise coming from the hallway that it's probably late at night.

"Oh, this is a question for me," Helena says when she realized Kate is looking at her expectantly. "Dear, it's been what feels like several lifetimes since I lived in London. I'm sure I have no idea what it's like now." She nods at you. "Your mother would know better than I would."

"Well, I only lived in D.C. for a year, and it's not exactly like other cities, but it was…" You think for a moment. "It was fun. There was always something to do, some new exhibit at a museum or a show that was in town. And of course, politically it was a huge improvement on Colorado Springs. But it was also… isolating. Everyone was busy with their own lives. I didn't hang out with my coworkers after work…" Helena raises her eyebrows at you. "Most of them. And people didn't know their neighbors."

Kate nods at you. She looks like she wants to say something, but you can tell by the way she's holding her lips that something in her mouth hurts. You reach out and cup the back of her neck, your thumb skimming the base of the black Colorado Buffalos beanie she's wearing.

"Is that where you want to live?" you ask her, careful to frame it as a yes or no question that she won't have to speak to answer.

She nods.

"Maybe we should think about that, for after this is all over, if you're up to it," you say. You squeeze her knee. "It'll be June, so Mama will be off." You glance at Helena, "I'll close up the shop for a week and we'll go to New York. Is that something you'd be interested in?"

Kate sighs and gives you a long, withering look that makes your heart sink, but she nods. Helena reaches across the bed and rests her hand on top of yours.

The last thing you remember, you were on Lincoln Highway, but now Pete is pulling into a parking spot near the door of an apartment building.

"This it?" he asks.

"Yes," Emily answers.

"Okay, I'm going to come back there and let you out," he tells her. "Don't try to make a run for it. You're not going to get far. My partner and I have chased down a lot of guys who were a lot bigger than you and weren't wearing a skirt and heels. Got it?" He looks at her in the rearview mirror.

"Got it," she sighs.

* * *

It's awful, being on the receiving end of a Tesla. You're not dead, and you're not bleeding, but that's about all you can say. Your entire body feels like you're being stuck with pins and your head throbs from the impact with the concrete when you fell. You and Pete should probably both get checked for concussions.

If only you had time for that right now.

"God damnit," Pete mutters as you shut off your Farnsworth. "Can you believe this? Steve?"

"I thought nothing surprised you anymore," you mutter, even though it's not funny.

"Yeah, well, I was kind of talking about ray guns and time travel," Pete answers. "This is just a good, old-fashioned betrayal."

You pull yourself slowly to your feet. You still feel dizzy and slightly nauseous. "They took Emily Lake," you say, as if Pete didn't see it happen.

To his credit, Pete doesn't point that out. "We'll get her back," he assures you.

"Thank god you're back."

You wrap Helena tightly in your arms and bury your face in her hair. You can smell her shampoo. It's still the same kind.

"You act like I've been gone a year," Helena says. She's trying to make it sound light, but her voice is thick. "It's only been six weeks."

"Someone was trying to kill you," you point out as you pull away. "One week would have been too long."

She wiggles her right ring finger at you. The gold ring glints in the light from the porch lamp. "Occupational hazard, I'm afraid. Surely you remember."

You take her hand and lead her into the house. "What I remember is that if Pete and I had been on the case, you _would_ have been back in a week."

She stands in the foyer as you lock the door behind her like she doesn't know what to do with herself, like she doesn't live here.

"Where's our daughter?" she finally asks.

"Asleep," you answer. "School tomorrow."

Helena glances at her watch and nods reluctantly. "I suppose I shouldn't wake her up then."

"You know," you begin, a smile making its way across your face, "it can't hurt to at least check on her before we go to bed."

Helena lights up. "One might even consider it good parenting."

"It's practically our responsibility," you agree.

"A little help, Mykes?"

When you look down at Pete, he's holding his hand out to you. He grunts as you help him pull himself to his feet. You both wobble, but he manages to ground himself first and steadies you with his hands on your shoulders.

"Okay. Okay, let's, uh…" He pauses and presses the heels of his hands into his temples.

"They don't really want Emily Lake," you say, thinking allowed. "Why would they? They must need Helena."

Pete claps his hands together, and you both flinch at the noise it makes as it echoes through the parking garage.

"That's it," he says. "They're going after her… consciousness whatever next."

"Let's go back to the Warehouse," you suggest. "We need to talk to your mother."

* * *

"So my body's out there teaching high school English."

Helena nods with an annoyed resignation, as if this turn of events is disappointing but not unexpected. You wonder if she remembers any of what they told her before they separated her consciousness from her body.

She must not. You remember her telling you she didn't know where she was being held.

"And your students love you," you volunteer halfheartedly. There is no way to make high school English teacher sound like a gripping occupation to a woman who invented a time machine.

"But a _cat?_ " She screws up her face like living with a cat is the worst fate imaginable.

You start to respond, but Pete speaks first.

"Dickens is solid. Saved my bacon."

"Yes, I don't know what that means," she answers. "But what does this Mr. Sykes want from me?"

"We were kind of hoping you could tell us." Claudia glances at you out of the corner of her eye.

"I'm afraid I have absolutely no idea," Helena says.

The three of you stare at her in silence because she has to know. There is no way Sykes would know about H.G. Wells being alive unless she contacted him herself.

"Steve," you gasp.

"What?" Claudia asks sharply.

"We told Steve about Helena. That must be how he knows about her."

Helena raises her eyebrows. "Steve?"

"The new Warehouse agent," you tell her. "Well, not anymore. He was fired. He's working with Sykes now."

"He is not working with Sykes," Claudia snaps.

"You've already had time to hire a new agent, discharge him, and see him betray you?" Helena asks. "Exactly how long have I been gone?"

"Twelve and a half months," you answer, even though you definitely haven't been counting.

She turns to you. "That's very precise."

"Umm, okay, I going to go call Artie and see what he wants us to do," Claudia says, thrusting the orb into your hands. "Pete, do you want to come?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, I need to uh… make sure the car has gas." He squeezes your shoulder on his way out.

You all know the car has gas. You stopped for gas twenty minutes before you arrived here.

"I do believe they've left us here alone intentionally," Helena says once Pete has closed the door behind him.

"Yeah. I'm not sure whether I should yell at Pete or thank him." You try to chuckle, but your throat has gone dry. You swallow thickly and look up at her. "I've missed you."

"And I, you," Helena answers matter-of-factly. She walks around the table to stand next to you. It occurs to you that she could walk through it if she wanted to. You wonder if she's doing it for your benefit or she's forgotten that she's not actually solid.

You wish you could reach out and touch her. You want to so badly it hurts.

Her shoulder glitches as you stick your fingers through it, trying to position your hand just so, so that it at least looks real.

Helena is watching you curiously, and when you finally drop your hand, because this is probably rude, she looks up at you.

"Did they tell you how long? Is it indefinite?"

"They didn't, but I dare say that was an unspoken understanding," she answers.

You nod.

You want to believe in the future you've seen. You want to believe that you'll have a life together, but the present is making it very difficult.

You're sitting in a kitchen. It's not the same kitchen you've been in before. It's larger and older. You're sitting at the table, head balanced on your fist, and Helena is seated across from you. She looks tired.

"The Warehouse has me all sorted out." She flips open a thick file and begins to thumb through it. "I earned my doctoral degree at Cambridge, where I studied science fiction novels from the turn of the century. Here's a copy of my dissertation." She takes a second to skim the first page. "It focuses on the early works of one H.G. Wells."

"I'm sorry, I haven't gotten past the part where you're going to be a professor," you reply.

"At least the University of Colorado took me," Helena says. "The Dean at Oregon wanted to give me an office in Banks Hall. That's the linguistics department. I'm not sure he realized they weren't the same thing."

"But doesn't that seem a little… mundane for you?" you ask. "You seemed very unenthused when it was Emily Lake doing the teaching."

"I was unenthused about the American accent and the cat and the living in Wyoming," she tells you. "Education is a noble profession."

You know she believes it, but she still sounds like she's trying to convince herself.

"Part of the reason you agreed to be the one to leave the Warehouse when she was born was because of how involved you would be as a Regent," you point out.

"And the other part was because I've been given a second chance to raise a daughter and I wanted to spend it actually raising her," Helena replies. "Besides, it's not as if I'll be completely cut off. They haven't stripped me of my position. None of the other Regents live near the Warehouse. Pete's mother lives in Ohio."

She gives you a long, unnerving look. Sometimes with her, you can tell that you're being studied.

"Is this really about me?" she finally asks.

You furrow your brow. "What do you mean?"

"Are you concerned about leaving the Warehouse to run an independent book store in Colorado?" she asks. "Is that not the life from which you've actively distanced yourself? As I recall, my being the one to leave active field work behind had no more to do with my wanting to leave than it did your wanting to stay."

"I'll miss it," you admit. "I didn't think I'd be retiring so early."

Helena reaches across the table and takes your hand. "My dear, no one ever thinks anything like this is going to happen."

You're back in the back room of the supermarket, and Helena is studying you with that same searching look.

"You were gone just then," she says.

"Yeah," you admit.

"It happened once before," Helena says. "Are they… are they seizures or something?"

"I'll explain later," you promise her. "Right now, we have make sure Sykes doesn't get his hands on your consciousness."

"Ah, yes." Helena smirks and rolls her eyes. "That irritating business."

* * *

Pete's suggestion makes you want to throw up.

"Myka, I'm just thinking of the greater good," he insists, as you stare at him in complete disbelief. "As long as that coin exists, it can be used against the Warehouse."

"The answer is still no," you say, your voice low and firm. You're as sure as you've ever been about anything that this is not the answer. "We cannot—I will not destroy H.G. Wells."

"May I offer an opinion?"

Her voice comes from over your shoulder. When you turn around, Claudia is clutching the orb to her chest, and Helena is standing beside her, hands clasped in front of her.

"I figured she should be part of this discussion," Claudia says, hard, flat, and angry.

"There is no discussion," you reply.

"Agreed." Helena pauses and takes a breath, but her response doesn't relieve you. Instead you feel a prickle at the back of your neck. You know something is about to go wrong.

"If you truly want to protect the Warehouse," she continues, "you must destroy the coin." She speaks slowly and serenely, like a parent explaining something to a child. It is not the voice of someone signing their own death warrant.

She approaches you, a soft smile on her face. "Destroy the coin, and whatever Sykes wants from me will be lost with it."

"But…" You drop your eyes to the ground, hesitate, and then look at her again. "You'd be gone. You'd be dead." You turn your back to her and take a step away. "The price is too high." You can't even feel yourself speaking anymore. The words sound like someone else's.

"What about Emily Lake?" Pete asks, as if she's your top concern at a time like this. She's a person who was created less than a year ago, camped out in Helena's body. She's an illusion. "If Sykes thinks he can put her back together… she's in a lot of danger."

You turn back toward them. Your eyes are brimming with unshed tears, and your instinct is to duck your head and escape back to the SUV to collect yourself, but you can't leave this decision up to chance.

"Destroy me, and she's of no value to him," Helena adds. She comes to stand beside Pete, close enough that she could reach out and touch you if she was solid. "Myka, you say she's a teacher, that her students love her." You nod weakly, and Helena smiles at you. It feels genuine, like it's meant for you. "Then let me live on through her."

"We can rescue Emily Lake," Pete says. "I promise you that."

"I have every confidence that you will," Helena answers. She turns back to you, takes another step toward you. "Myka, we have to think rationally, not emotionally. And quickly, before I remember that I'm not this noble."

"It's the right thing to do, Myka," Pete tells you. "You know that, don't you?"

It can't be fair, the two of them teaming up on you like this. You love them more than anything else in the world, and now you're about to lose one of them, and the other is going to take her from you.

Helena steps abruptly back toward Pete. "Pete, um, I think you'll have to be the one to—"

"I know," he sighs. "I will." He glances at you and then back at Helena, and fumbles a moment for words. "Thanks for everything, Helena."

She smiles tightly at him, and then she turns toward Claudia, who, like you, seems to be barely containing her tears.

"I regret I won't be here to see you reach your destiny. It will surely be a glorious one."

Claudia rolls her eyes and shakes her head, but you can see how unnerved she is at the ferocity and conviction in Helena's voice.

"I don't know about that."

"Then you're the only one."

You look away when Helena turns back toward you. You're not going to be able to hold yourself together. You can already feel yourself cracking.

"How do you say goodbye to the one person who knows you better than anyone else?"  
"I wish I knew," you whisper.

"Be brave," she tells you. "I need your strength." She's about to start crying too, you realize. You can hear it in her voice. You can see her eyes glistening.

It takes her a long time to look away.

"The last thing I want to see is the sky."

She lifts her head toward the tree tops, and her fingers fumble against her chest for a locket that no longer hangs around her neck.

Claudia reactivates the orb and she disappears.

"Pete."

She hands the coin to him, and he looks down at it. When he looks back up at you, he seems like he might be about to apologize. You don't want him to. If you let him take responsibility, you'll never stop blaming him.

"I can't watch this," you say before he's even opened his mouth.

"Me neither."

Claudia wraps her arm around you as you pass. She is actually crying now, but she rubs your back like you're the one who needs comfort.

Your feet are still landing one in front of the other, but you feel like you're floating back to the SUV with only Claudia's arm for guidance.

At least it's beautiful. It's beautiful here, and this is a painless way to go. It suits her to die a hero.

It doesn't make you hurt any less.

You're crying so hard that you can't tell where you are. Someone is clinging to your hand so hard it hurts, but you don't want them to let go.

You can make out a blur of green speckled with dots of white, and you can tell that it's a cemetery. You don't see the yellows and oranges indicative of early fall, but there is a nip in the air that makes you wish your suit pants had bigger pockets and a scent in the breeze that tells you rain is coming.

A hand closes around your arm, and you can sense someone leaning towards you.

Pete pulls you into a tight hug. Over his shoulder, you can see Steve tipping earth into the grave with the back of the shovel.

"I can't believe she's gone. I don't…" his voice breaks, "I don't even know how to live in a world without her anymore."

He lets you go and hugs Helena.

"I know you to had some kind of weird connection," he tells her. "She really looked up to you, you know? Right from the very beginning."

He releases her and gives you a quick nod. "I'll be in the car."

He takes off between two headstones marked MOSHE RUBENFELD and ABRAHAM LEIB toward a black SUV, almost at a run. You can see by the heaving of his shoulder that he is trying not to break down until he is behind the tinted windows. Steve follows him, wiping his hands on his coat and adjusting the black ribbon pinned to his lapel. He nods silently at you as he passes. His jaw is clenched and he hasn't even tried to hold back his tears.

Helena squeezes your hand.

"A loss of this magnitude is never easy," she says. She is crying too. "But we are both so lucky to have known her."

You shake your head. "She was too young for this."

Helena pulls you toward her. You can feel her body shaking against yours as you sob in each other's arms.

"It seems that fate has a knack for taking the best among us before they've had a chance to experience all life has to offer," Helena answers, her voice tight.

"She did live while she was here," you say as you bury your head in her neck.

Helena nods against your shoulder. "And thank god for that."

Coming back to the present feels like a kick in the stomach. Surely Helena is gone by now. You don't remember how to live in a world where H.G. Wells is a figment of the past.

The forest has a little less color now than it did when you arrived.

"Myka! Myka!" Claudia is calling at you.

You shake your head and blink your eyes a couple of times. "What?"

You sound like you're just waking up from a nap that was short enough to do more harm than good.

"Snap out of it."

Something is being shoved into your hands. Your Tesla.

"Come on, something's wrong. I hear voices, and they are definitely not Pete and H.G. We've got to go."

* * *

It's already dark when you finally get Claudia in the SUV. She's not crying anymore, and she seems too exhausted to do much of anything.

"I want to ride back with him," she says as you lead her out to the car. She tries weakly to pull away from you, but your grip remains firm on her arm.

"They're putting him on a charter jet," you tell her. "There won't be room."

"It's a jet. I'm not that big," Claudia argues.

"There won't be seatbelts," you reply.

"You'd want to fly back with Pete." She says it like it's an accusation.

You sigh. "Yeah, I would, but we need you right now, Claud. We need you to help us catch Sykes, okay? He has what he wanted, and we still have no idea what he's planning. We can't stop him without you. Steve—"

She shakes her head at you. "Don't you dare tell me it's what Steve would want."

"I wasn't going to," you answer.

"You didn't know him like I did."

"I know."

"You don't care about what Steve would want. You're just relieved H.G.'s still alive."

"I am."

"Do you even believe what you're saying, or are you just telling me what I need to hear so I'll help you get her back?"

"Look, I want her back," you admit. "And I think you do too." You reach out to tip her chin up, and you're surprised when she doesn't bat your hand away. "I know Steve was your best friend. I know. But do you really want to lose another friend today?"

Claudia takes a deep breath and you watch her re-inflate. She nods her head. "Okay."

She climbs into the back seat of the SUV, but when you try to close the door after her, she holds out her arm to stop it.

"I really am glad H.G. is alive," she tells you.

You smile fleetingly at her. "I know."

"You rang?"

You jump. You're standing in a kitchen—the first one, the one you've become used to seeing when you go away—and Claudia is standing behind you.

"You know I hate that," you say. You sound tired. You feel tired too. "We used to talk about how creepy it was when Mrs. Frederic just showed up in our rooms instead of knocking."

"That was before I knew how fun it is." Claudia is smiling, but her smile disappears when her eyes reach your face. "What's going on?"

"Kate ran away."

"Oh man." Claudia flails her arms limply at her sides like a whiny teenager. "Why can't you guys ever invite me down here just because you want to hang out?"

"Can't you just find her? Don't you have that…" your fingers form a triangle in front of your forehead, "all-seeing eye or whatever?"

Claudia laughs. "Okay, contrary to popular belief, I'm not _actually_ a god."

"Then don't you have some kind of artifact you can use?" you ask desperately. "Or Warehouse technology?"

"Well, we did just recover Tenzing Norgay's ice-axe," she answers. "But I don't know if we need to be able to see the entire world at once. That sort of seems like overkill."

You cross your arms. "Claudia, this is serious."

"Okay, okay." She holds her hands up. "But seriously, we don't need an artifact. We've got you."

"Me?"

"Yeah, you're her mom. Who knows her better than you and H.G.?" Claudia is moving her hands in circles as she thinks. Later on, it will strike you as odd, seeing Claudia play the adult, even if you know she's older than she looks. "Okay, so do you know why she ran away? Did you guys have a fight or…"

"No, no." You shake your head. "She was upset last night. We got back from the hospital. Her white blood cell count wasn't what we were hoping for. She stormed up to her room, wouldn't come down for dinner. When we woke up this morning, she was gone."

"And when she's upset about… being sick, what usually makes her feel better?" Claudia asks.

You sigh and lean back against the counter. "I don't know. She just wants to feel normal. She wants to hang out with her friends. She wants to have a life. She wants to play softball again and get back to marching band and buy a prom dress a month in advance without having to worry about whether she's going to be healthy enough to go. She wants—"

You break off.

"What?"

"I think I know where she is." You lunge for your phone on the counter by the coffee machine. You turn to the Adams-Arapahoe School District calendar on the refrigerator and flip to the back page, where the contact information is.

"At school?" Claudia's eyebrows shoot up so high they disappear under her bangs. "You think she went to school?"

"That's what she misses most when she's in intensive treatment," you explain. "That's what ties her to the rest of her life."

Claudia rolls her eyes. "I swear to God, Myka. You are the only person I've ever met who would produce a child who'd run away to _school_." She laughs and shakes her head. "Wait until Pete hears about this."

"Get in the car, Myka," Pete is saying. "Let's get out of here."

You realize as Pete is driving up Route 16 that even if Helena comes out of this alive, even if it is possible for same-sex marriage to be legal in South Dakota someday, you can't be seeing the future, because you've seen Steve there.


	7. Chapter 7

The next time you're in the same room with Helena, you're in Hong Kong, and you're actually with _her_ this time, but the only things on your mind are Pete and the Warehouse.

Maybe there's a still a leap in your chest when your fingers skim against hers as you rearrange the pieces on the chess board, but it's secondary to the ache deep in the pit of your stomach as you worry about Sykes.

You wanted her back so badly, but you never wanted to trade her for Pete.

"You should have destroyed the Janus coin the moment you found it," she is saying. "Then I wouldn't have caused all this."

"I wish that you would stop doing that," you sigh.

"Doing what?" she asks.

"You're not the bad guy, okay?" you reply, looking up at her for the first time since this conversation began. "I believed in you and I was right, so get off your… your cross and help me figure this out."

"You really think that?" she asks. Her hands have stopped moving. One of them is still resting on a rook.

"Of course," you reply. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Because I betrayed you." Her voice grows louder. "I stole an artifact with which I attempted to create an ice age. I was ready to kill you."

"No you weren't," you remind her. "That's what saved all of us."

She throws her hands in the air. "So that's it then. The fact that I let you live absolves me of everything I'd done. I didn't realize not killing the person you—not killing a person was the marker of morality."

"No," you answer. "But everything you've done since? Consulting on cases? Helping us even though you had nothing to gain? You were willing to die for the Warehouse, Helena." You pause to take a breath. You expect her to argue, but she's just staring at you with a curious glint in her eye. "You don't have to keep trying to die for us. The world would not be better without you in it."

She purses her lips, looks away, considers what you've said.

"Righty-ho then." She's smiling when she looks back at you. "Old times. Wells and Bering solving puzzles, saving the day?"

"Bering and Wells," you answer.

She looks like she expected you to point out that it's really not like old times, that even if you've forgiven her, things will never be the same, but you're not sure that's true. You don't want it to be.

Regardless, you doubt this is the end of this conversation.

"—so it wasn't really a spur of the moment decision—that's not like your mom, right? But your mom… your other mom—"

"Mama?" Kate asks. Her voice sounds small. You can tell she's young, even though you can't see her.

You're back in the Warehouse, standing in the doorway of the office. Pete is kneeling in front of a rolling chair that's turned away from you.

"Right, she thought it was," he continues. "So we all pile in the car—your mom kept trying to tell us we didn't have to come, it was like she didn't know us at all—and we're all in our nicest clothes, and we drive an hour to Rapid City, but apparently, you have to call ahead because they don't have a Justice of the Peace in all the time."

"What's a Juspice of the Peace?" Kate asks.

You cut Pete off before he can answer. "What are you saying to her?"

Pete stands up. Kate giggles as he swivels the rolling chair so she's facing you. She can't be older than three or four.

"I was just telling her about how you and H.G. met and feel in love," he answers.

You raise an eyebrow at him. "Not in too much detail, I hope."

"Nah, I just told her about how when we met _Mama_ ," he turns to look at Kate, "she wanted to do a bad thing, but you stopped her. You never stopped believing in her. That's what we do for people we love."

"You loved her?" Kate's voice is high and gleeful.

You smile. "Right from the beginning."

"Myka!"

Helena's voice snaps you back to the bunker.

"I know how to get us back to the Warehouse," she says. She studies you out of the corner of her eye. "Someday you're going to tell me what that is."

"As soon as we have a second to breath," you promise her.

* * *

Sykes goes down, and you hear Artie yell, "Myka, thank god! Come on!"

You're halfway down the row of shelves when you hear Helena call after you. She's wrapped tightly in a rope, dangling off the ground, gasping for breath.

"H.G.!"

"Rigging rope from the Mary Celeste," she gasps, wrestling with it as it pulls itself tighter around her neck.

"Hang on."

You make a grab for the rope.

"No, Myka, don't—"

The rope slithers around your body and pulls you off the ground. It slams you against her, a reminder that she's really here, solid again.

"Touch the rope…" you finish, "I imagine was the rest of that sentence." Your face is inches from hers.

You've dreamed of being this close to her, but not like this. You're too panicked about the prospect of being strangled to really appreciate it.

"If you pull at it, it only gets tighter," she tells you, although she seems to be pulling at it as hard as you are.

"That's…" you choke, "good to know."

"Will you ever learn not to play with these things?" you hear Artie ask. You can't see him, but he sounds more annoyed than panicked, so you figure you probably aren't going to die like this.

You see sparks flying over Helena's shoulder, and then the rope drops to the ground, leaving you both rubbing your necks and coughing.

You could kiss her right now, you think for a fleeting second as Helena recovers beside you. It would be so easy to close the foot between you.

But then Artie says, "Let's go," and you remember that Sykes is still loose in the Warehouse somewhere.

After this is over, you decide. After this is over, you're going to clench your fists and do it. You've had to live with missing your chance for a year, and you won't let that happen again.

* * *

It doesn't occur to you until you're running up to Pete with Helena and Artie how afraid you were that something would happen to him. You've spent the past year worried about Helena. Pete, you've taken for granted because he's always here exactly when you need him and usually even when you don't.

He hugs Helena and she looks almost comically confused by it. It takes her a moment to awkwardly wrap her arms around him and pat his back.

"Thank you," he tells her.

"Anytime," she answers.

The hug lasts longer than it probably needs to, and is only interrupted by Pete's Farnsworth.

Helena steps back to your side and raises her eyebrows at you.

You're standing on the second floor of Leena's outside a bedroom that you know isn't there now. The door is closed, and you make no move to open it.

"The way I see it…" Pete's voice, "we've both been given a gift. We get to be important people in her life, and we're both just trying to do the best we can."

"I quite agree," Helena answers. You can hear the hesitation in her voice, like she's waiting for a "but."

"You know… when she first told me about… when she first told me how she felt about you, I didn't get it," Pete says. "I mean, I did because—because you're hot, and a great kisser, even if you do taste like my grandma's sock drawer."

You hear Helena chuckle.

"But you know, you'd just tried to destroy the world—" Pete continues.

"Ah yes, that unfortunate business," Helena cuts in.

"Yeah, so, you know, I didn't get it." He pauses, and you hear him take a deep breath. "But that was before we were friends and before I really—before I really got how crazy you are about her. How happy you make her." He sighs. "I'm happy for her, but I'm happy for you too."

"That's kind of you to say."

"Hey, come on, H.G." Pete sounds less serious now. You can hear him smiling. "You're marrying my best friend tomorrow. We're about to be best friend-in-laws."

"Best friends-in-law," Helena replies. "Is that… what does Claudia say… is that a _thing_ now?"

When you come back, Helena is still standing beside you, arms crossed. Pete and Artie are gathered around the computer screen. The red lights surrounding you are still flashing.

"The barrier's still up," you murmur.

Helena raises her eyebrows at you and nods, and you gather that you're slow on the uptake.

Artie takes off, mumbling something to himself. You can't hear what he's saying, but you all follow him anyway.

Pete drops back to your side and nudges you in the ribs. "It's been happening a lot the past couple days."

You nod. "More than usual."

"Still the same stuff?" Pete asks.

You sigh and nod. "Still the same timeline. It doesn't seem like it's been affected by anything that's happened here."

"Are you going to…" Pete trails off, and his eyes wander to Helena, just of few steps in front of you.

"As soon as all this is over," you tell him, your voice so low you're not entirely sure he can hear you. "I'm going to tell her everything."

* * *

As soon as you get her back, she's gone again.

Pete and Artie are yelling around you, but all you can do is stand, rooted to the spot, and feel like you've just have the wind knocked out of you.

She mouths, "thank you," to you. When you hear the beep of the timer hitting zero, she tries to smile. It's for your benefit.

The last thing she wanted to see was the sky.

"What is that thing?" she asks you.

You're standing on a sidewalk holding her hand. Her skin feels loose and papery. You've got a warm paper cup in your other hand. The steam wafting off of it smells like coffee.

"It's called the Cloud Gate." You can see your breath when you speak.

"The Cloud Gate," Helena repeats. "That's quite romantic."

"But pretty much everyone calls it the Bean," you add.

"Ah," Helena answers. "No surprise there."

"There you are!"

When you turn around, you see woman walking towards you. She has your curly brown hair, and she is carrying a young, dark-haired girl of east Asian descent.

"Kate, your mother was just telling me about your Bean," Helena says. Her hair is completely white, and she's wearing a pair of glasses you've never seen before.

Kate shakes her head. "It's ours and we love it." She turns to the girl. "Hey, Victoria, you want to go make faces at it? I think Grandma will help you."

"I'd love nothing more," Helena answers as she reaches for the little girl.

Kate shoves her hands in her pockets and watches Helena lead Victoria by the hand to the mirrored surface of the sculpture.

"How was your flight?" Kate asks.

You shrug. "Fine. Surprisingly quiet. I got halfway through my book. _The Count of Monte Cristo._ "

"Good." Kate nods. "Mama spent the whole time staring out the window?"

You smile. "Of course. So, where's Ken?"

"In Seoul," Kate answers. "Visiting his sister."

"I thought his sister lived in Milwaukee," you say.

Kate shakes her head. "They grew up in Milwaukee. His parents live in Milwaukee."

You nod toward Victoria. "She's not with Jessica."

"Away on business," Kate explains. "Phoenix, I think. She's picking her up on Thursday."

"Have you talked to him about Brazil?" you ask.

She shakes her head. "I'm waiting for the right time. How do you tell your spouse that you took a job on another continent without talking about it first?"

"I can't imagine," you answer. "I'd say you should tell him that you've been destined for this job since you were born, but somehow, I don't think he'd believe that."

"It was a very time-sensitive offer," Kate says.

"Very," you agree.

The smoke is still clearing when you come back. The barrier flickers, and then it's gone, and there's nothing. The bent I-beams sticking out of the dirt and the scorch marks on the ground are the only indicators that you were inside a monstrous building just moments ago. You can see the Badlands for miles.

You feel a heavy weight fall across your shoulders, and you realize it's Pete's arm.

"Did you see…" His voice is choked. "Were you gone before…"

"I saw everything." You're unnerved by how even you sound.

He sighs and squeezes your shoulder. He doesn't try to apologize, and you appreciate it.

"That was his plan," Pete says. "To… destroy the entire Warehouse. We lost, Artie." You turn to face him as he repeats, "We lost."

Artie holds up something that looks like a stopwatch, but you know it must be an artifact. "Not yet."

* * *

They're talking about using an artifact to change the past. They're talking about it, and even Artie seems to think it's a possibility.

You thought you and Pete had established over a year ago that the past can't be changed.

"Artie, let's go," Pete says, rapping his hand against the side table. "Use the watch."

"Watch? What watch?" Claudia asks. She's sitting on the arm of the couch looking sullen. She's always been headstrong and impulsive, and she's lost a lot in the past twenty-four hours. You're not surprised she's jumping on this.

"McPherson's watch?" Leena looks from Claudia to Artie. "Artie, I thought you didn't know how that worked." Her eyes are red-rimmed. She knew Mrs. Frederic better than any of you. They've both been constants at the Warehouse since long before you and Pete.

"I don't," Artie answers.

"We also don't know if it has a downside," you point out.

"Well, yeah, but what difference does it make?"

It's the kind of answer you expect from Pete. You know he's trying to support you here, trying to get H.G. back for you, trying to get Steve back for Claudia, and Mrs. Frederic for Artie and Leena.

He's trying to help, but he's wrong.

"Well, it's a danger that we have to consider."

You hate feeling like the only adult in the room. You especially hate it now, when your mind is screaming at you to just be selfish for once.

"Who cares?" Claudia scoffs. All of you stop and look at her. "Mrs. Frederic is dead. Steve is dead. H.G. is dead." She emphasizes the last sentence, as if you didn't know. As if the fact that the world is in imminent danger isn't the only thing holding you together.

"I know, I watched her die."

Your voice is harsher than you've ever spoken to Claudia before, and you see her expression soften immediately.

It's not something you would wish on anyone, watching the final moments of someone you love, watching them die for you.

"But everyday people die," you continue. "Sometimes it's people we care about, and sometimes it's even people that we love. We just… we just need to make sure we're not being selfish."

You're in a dark room. You can see the light from outside through the blinds, but there's not a lot of it. It's raining. You can hear it against the windows.

"Hey there, kiddo." Pete's voice comes from behind you.

He flips the light on, and you see Kate. She's a teenager again. She's wearing a knit beanie with coils of yarn coming out of it like hair. It must have been a gift from Pete or Claudia, because it doesn't look like the kind of thing you or Helena would buy.

"How was it?" she asks. Her voice sounds raw. She looks very pale, and there are dark bags under her eyes.

"It was a lovely service," Helena answers. She strides purposefully toward the bed and presses a kiss to Kate's forehead.

"Wish I could have gone," she says as Pete directs you to the chair beside the bed with a hand on your shoulder. He reaches over and ruffles the yarn on Kate's hat.

"No one wishes they could go to a funeral."

"Did you… did you put some dirt in her grave for me?" she asks.

You squeeze her leg through the quilt. "Of course."

"She would understand," Helena tells her. "She loved you very much. She would want you to stay here and focus on your recovery."

"Do you ever think…" Kate hesitates. She looks over at you. Pete's hand is still on your shoulder. You can feel it shaking.

She starts over. "Do you ever think that someone else took your place?"

"What do you mean?" you ask.

"Do you ever think that you were the one who was supposed to die, but someone else went instead?"

You reach out and take Kate's hand. "No." You shake your head. "She was—" You break off because Kate doesn't know. "This is something that's been coming since before you got sick. Since before you were born, even."

Kate stares blankly at you. "She died in a freak accident at work."

"She had a very dangerous job."

"She was an _engineer_ ," Kate argues.

"She was an engineer with Top Secret clearance who worked with experimental isotopes and highly combustible chemicals," you answer.

Helena gives you a significant look, and you know that the time has come. Kate is going to be Helena's one person, and now she's old enough to know.

When you come back, the TV is turned on to the news. Artie and Leena are talking very quickly about Pandora's box.

There have been mass suicides, the stock markets are crashing, and it can all be linked to the destruction of the Warehouse. Hope has been pulled out of the world.

Suddenly, any downsides the watch might have seem trivial.

* * *

You're on a plane to Minneapolis, where you'll board a flight to JFK, where you'll board a flight to Paris. The past few hours have gone by in a blur. You're tapping your fingers against the armrest, shaking your foot. You need to be moving so you don't feel like you're wasting precious time doing nothing. You have twenty-four hours to save Helena and Mrs. Frederic, and it can't be right that you're wasting two thirds of it in the air.

Pete rests his hand over yours.

"We're going to get them back," he tells you. "It'll be fine."

"You can't know that," you answer.

He sighs. "I know we all have a bad case of emotional whiplash from the past twenty-four hours, and it's worse for you than it is for me, but you need to try to sleep. We need your head in the game once we touch down in France. H.G. needs your head in the game."

You glare at him. "That's not fair. Can you sleep right now?"

He closes his eyes and leans back into his seat. "I'm sure as hell going to try."

You're wearing a suit and standing by a set of glass doors. It's dark in the parking lot, but you can see an SUV with soda cans tied to the rear bumper parked directly under the nearest streetlight.

Kate is standing in front of you. She's wearing a long white dress, beaded and strapless. A thin, pink scar peaks out from above the top hem of her dress, just below her right collar bone. It's old and healed over, and it no longer draws your eye. She looks thin, and you're worried she's been dieting in anticipation of today.

"You'll eat while you're in Greece, right?" you ask.

Kate laughs. "Of course, Mom. That's half the point of going."

"You'll call us when you land," Helena says, and Kate nods. "We couldn't be happier for you."

She steps in and wraps her arms around her. Kate hugs her back with one arm and holds the other out to you.

When you finally pull away, all three of you are crying. Helena gropes for your hand and holds on tight.

"In thirty years, when Ken and I are at Victoria's wedding, we hope we still look as in love as you guys did tonight," Kate says. "I think you might have outshined us."

Helena scoffs. "Nonsense. We're a couple of old women. The two of you were the life of the party."

Kate reaches out and rests a hand on Helena's shoulder. "I'm serious, Mama. All my life, I've just wanted to be as happy with someone as you."

You wipe away a tear. "Well, Ms. Wells-Chae, we know you have a plane to catch tomorrow. We won't keep you."

Kate peers over your shoulder and then looks around the room. "If I can find Mr. Chae-Wells, that is."

You're back on the plane. Beside you, Pete's eyes are closed, but you can tell by the sound of his breathing that he's not asleep. You elbow him in the side.

"Ow!" he exclaims as he jerks upright. "Rude!"

"Pete, do you ever feel like… like your whole life is just the world playing a really mean trick on you?" you ask.

He presses the back of his hand to his forehead dramatically. "Every time I remember my work wife will never love me back and I'm destined to die alone in ag—ouch! Myka!"

"I know you're trying to lighten the mood, Pete, but this is not the time," you say. "I keep having these—it thought… it turns out things aren't always as they seem."

"You had a flashforward of a fortune cookie?" Pete asks.

"No, I was just…" You turn to look out the window. You can see a high school. You can always tell what buildings are high schools from the air because you can see the football stadium. "Listen, I'm going to tell you something, because now I know it's… that it's impossible. In the flashforwards, Helena and I have a daughter, and she's… she's sick. She's really sick. And I… I thought she died."

"Myka—"

"But I've been having flashforwards to farther along in the timeline than I've ever seen her, and it turns out, she gets better. She lives." You shake your head. "So, when I thought it was possible, I thought we were going to lose her. And now that I know we don't, now that I know we get a happy ending, I also know that it can't actually be our future because—" You break off. Your voice is thick in your throat and you don't want to cry.

You feel a heavy hand on your shoulder. "It could still be your future. We're going to get her back."

* * *

Leaving Claudia in that cellar is one of the hardest things you have ever had to do.

You offer to stay with her, and then Pete offers, and in the end, she sends all three of you off. From a logical standpoint, it's better this way. The three of you will be able to cover more ground in your remaining time than only two people could, and you don't know whose skills you'll need.

It doesn't feel like the better decision, though. It feels like you're leaving a family member to die alone in the dark.

You'll find the alidade or you'll come back, you tell yourself, like Artie said. Either way, she won't be down here forever.

You're back in the cemetery. Orange and red and brown leaves cover the ground, but you can tell it's the same one as before because most of the headstones around you have inscriptions in Hebrew on them and you can see Moshe Rubenfeld's headstone off to your left.

Your hand rests on Kate's left shoulder, Helena's on her right shoulder. She's wearing a pair of baggy grey sweatpants and the same red Rangeview Marching Band hoodie with the hood up under a black jacket. You can feel through her clothes how thin she is.

The grass on the grave you're standing in front of is sparse, and the headstone looks shiny and new.

Kate kneels down and sets a mason jar on top of it. It's filled with metal flowers with wire stems and petals made of gears that look like they came out of clocks.

"That seems appropriate," Helena comments.

You hear Kate sniffle. "I've been saving them. She told me when I had enough, we'd build something really cool. She never said what."

You roll your eyes. "Probably some sort of wormhole generator or weather machine that had no business being in our basement or within ten miles of our daughter."

"If you want to build a weather machine, all you have to do is ask," Helena adds, a smirk playing across her lips.

You chuckle and wipe away a tear. "She loved you, Kate. You know that, right?"

Kate sighs shakily, and Helena's head snaps toward her. "Are you okay? Do you need to go back to the car?"

"Give me just a minute," she says. She hobbles off toward a bench. You and Helena both watch her until she sits down.

"She had so much left to contribute," you say, turning back toward the grave. "She was supposed to outlive all of us."

"I think you'll find that the people who are supposed to outlive us never do," Helena replies. She falls silent, but you can tell she wants to say something else. You can almost hear her thinking.

"I was there when it happened," she admits without meeting your eye. You take her hand. "It wasn't… it wasn't quick but… she was in no pain. I could never remember she'd been alive fifty years when I looked at her."

You nod. "She didn't look a day over thirty."

"I'd talk to her, and she'd still be that teenager with so much enthusiasm and curiosity and insecurity." Helena shakes her head. "Do you want to know what she said to me? Before she went?"

"Do I?" you ask her.

"She said…" Helena glances over toward Kate. She's still on the bench picking apart a leaf. "She said, 'Take care of that girl. She's going to be the Caretaker one day.'"

Pete is putting you into a little blue taxi when you come back.

"Got to keep your head in the game, Mykes? Okay?"

You groan. "It's not like I can help it."

"I know," he replies. "But we really need you focused on this one. We're not going to figure it out without you."

"I know," you breathe as he slides into the car beside you. You realize it sounds like you're bragging and open your mouth to explain, but Pete is smiling at you.

"I like that confidence. In it to win it. Just another eight hours and this'll all be over."

* * *

Your lip is bleeding and your shoulder is dislocated by the time they get you into the police car. You're in nauseating pain, and you can hear the sound of gunfire. You hope Pete and Artie can pull this off and—you clench your jaw and whimper as the car lurches forward—if they don't, you hope they both make it out.

You can't lose Pete too. You wouldn't survive that.

When you feel yourself slipping away to the other timeline, you don't fight it. It's where you'd rather be.

You're in a large, crowded room. There's music playing, a slow song that you've heard before but can't place, and you're revolving slowly.

Helena is in your arms. Her face is nestled against your shoulder, but you know it's her. You recognize the length and texture of the white hair brushing your cheek, the way her jacket fits, the size of the hand on your waist.

A few steps away, you see Kate. Her hair is pulled up in a way that can only have been inspired by _Beauty and the Beast_. She's dancing with a man with thick black hair and a purple bow tie. They're smiling at each other the way you smiled on your wedding day all those years ago.

You see Leena in a lilac dress that moves like water dancing with Pete, a toddler that you think is Victoria being chased by a smiling woman with a curtain of straight black hair that matches hers and bright red lipstick, Steve standing awkwardly by the buffet eating cheese cubes.

"Look at them," Helena whispers to you. She is facing them now. "Do you suppose we ever looked at each other like that?"

You press a kiss to the side of her head and you feel her sigh.

"I know we did."

You move the hand on her shoulder to the back of her neck and wrap a strand of wispy hair around your finger. You feel her hand fist in your jacket.

If heaven exists, this is it. You and Helena holding each other like this for an eternity.

"Myka, tell me honestly," she says. "Did you ever think we'd make it to this?"

You hesitate before answering. "No."

She exhales. You can tell she was holding her breath. "I didn't either."

You feel tears pressing at the corners of your eyes. You get the feeling this is not the first time you have cried today.

"She looks beautiful, doesn't she?" you ask.

"She's always looked beautiful when she was happy," Helena answers. "I don't think I've ever seen her look more beautiful in my life."

The song is winding down. Helena's hand slides back to your hip as she steps away. "It's nearly time for the mo—"

You see sparks flying over Helena's shoulder, and then the rope drops to the ground, leaving you both rubbing your neck and coughing.

You could kiss her right now, you think for a fleeting second as Helena recovers beside you. It would be so easy to close the foot between you.

But Artie is standing there and you know it's not the time.

"Artie, thank god," you gasp.

"Yes, that was getting rather close," Helena agrees.

"Okay, listen," you say, because Helena just came out of the Janus coin a day ago and Artie looks rather dazed at the moment, not that you can blame him, given the brushes with death you have all experienced since this nightmare with Sykes began. "We have to find Sykes, right? He's probably… Artie, what's wrong?"

"Are you alright?" Helena asks.

"What?" He looks at you for the first time since freeing you. "Yeah… I'm good. Right, you were tied up, and now you're free."

"Artie," you say firmly, because this is not the time for him to suddenly develop short-term memory loss. "What is wrong?"

"Nothing," he answers quickly enough for you to know that something is definitely wrong. "Right, uh, yeah… then there's a bomb in Sykes' wheelchair…" He is mumbling to himself, but he turns back to you and repeats, "There's a bomb in Sykes' wheelchair!"

"Why would he have a bomb if—" you begin.

"Because he wants to destroy the Warehouse. He wants to blow it up."

"Yes. Yes, that makes perfect sense," Helena replies. "This is what he's been waiting decades to—how did you know about that?"

"We have to go to isle Rose Scott, 1948. We have to do that right now."

"Why do you always do that," you call as he takes off at a run, but he doesn't answer and you have no choice but to follow.


	8. Chapter 8

You go back to Leena's with Pete. Helena is still at the Warehouse, in some side office where Mr. Kasan put her while the Regents discuss her fate. Of course, you never _really_ had her back. You're embarrassed that you ever thought you did.

Claudia is in her room when you get back. You can hear her in there, banging on things and swearing occasionally, but she doesn't come down to tell you she's happy you're alive. You're not sure you can blame her. If your positions were reversed, if you'd saved Steve but not Helena, you wouldn't be in the mood to socialize either.

"Get some sleep, Mykes," Pete tells you when you reach the top of the stairs before he shuts himself in his own bedroom. "She might not be here, but she's still…" he gestures vaguely to the air around you, "out there. That's better than the alternative, right?"

You don't think you'll be able to sleep, but you're out as soon as your head hits the pillow.

You wake up feeling reluctantly refreshed. Light is no longer peeking through the curtains. The clock on your night stand shows 5:14 AM. You've been asleep for fourteen hours.

When you venture into the hallway, it takes you a moment to realize that there is an extra door. You blink at it, half expecting it to disappear, but it doesn't. You shake your head and turn away, down the stairs. You're probably dreaming, or you're seeing into the other timeline again.

You go to the Warehouse with Claudia and Pete like nothing happened. After work, you talk to Leena about the artifact that was acting up earlier and the flowers she's going to use in her autumn floral arrangements. You don't ask her about the extra room, which is still there, and she doesn't mention it.

You don't actually see Helena until that evening. The sun has set, and you're at your desk thumbing through your copy of _Frankenstein_. You read it as a teenager, during that period in high school when it felt like everyone was out to get you and your life would never turn out the way you wanted, and it's been your favorite comfort read ever since. You mark your place with a coupon for laundry detergent when you hear the knock at the door.

"What do you want, Pete?" you call without turning around.

"I thought we might have a word."

It's not Pete.

You nearly knock over your chair in your haste to get to the door.

Helena is standing in the hallway, her hands twisting together in front of her, and she looks as nervous as you've ever seen her.

"Helena," you say.

"Hello, Myka." She smiles as you. It makes your heart leap. "Might we talk?"

"Oh. Of course." You step away from the door and nod towards the inside of the room

You close the door behind her as she sits carefully on the side of your bed. You sink onto the mattress next to her. Your heart is beating in your ears

"I believe I'm owed an explanation," Helena says.

"Right." You nod and take a deep breath. "The…" you think back to the word Helena used, "episodes."

"Is it some sort of seizure disorder?" she asks.

"No, it's nothing like—at least I don't think it is," you answer. "It's…" you trail off. You try to remember how you explained it to Pete. It was a quick conversation on a plane. There was less to explain then. You didn't know as much.

"I have these… flashes, where I see things that aren't actually happening."

"You're having hallucinations," Helena says, her voice concerned. You shake your head.

"No, they're not—they feel like memories," you try again. "But they're of things that haven't happened. At first, I thought I was seeing into another timeline, and then I thought it was the future, but now I know that's not true."

You sigh.

"How long has this been going on?" Helena asks.

"Since I joined the Warehouse," you answer without meeting her eye. You expect her to be offended that you didn't tell her after she was reinstated the first time, but she brushes past it.

"Right, let's break it down, shall we? What initially made you think you were seeing into a different timeline?"

"I was seeing things I didn't think were possible here," you answer.

"And then you thought you were seeing the future," Helena says. "What changed?"

"I had a conversation that I'd already had in a flashforward," you explain. "That's what we've been calling them. But some of the things I saw… I'm still not sure. We weren't that much older. I wanted to think it was the future, but I can't imagine everything changing so much."

Helena frowns. "Myka, what did you see?"

You drop your eyes to the floor. You want to tell her. You were planning on telling her everything after the Warehouse was safe. Of course, these kinds of conversations are always easier to plan than to have.

You feel her fingers brush against your forearm.

"I saw myself…" Your voice sounds choked. You swallow thickly. "I saw myself marrying a woman." Your face feels hot and your ears are ringing. You want to tell her it's her. You'd planned to tell her, but the words are stuck in your throat.

"Ah." Helena replies. Her hand tenses on your arm, and for a moment, you think she's going to pull away. "Yes, I can see why that would cause you such distress."

"It's not…" You sigh and shake your head. "It's not that I didn't want it. I just didn't know I wanted it. And it's impossible. Look around. It's not getting legalized here anytime soon."

"Is this why you're no longer sure that what you're seeing is the future?" she asks.

"No, I… I thought I must have been wrong when you were going to die," you explain. "I've seen you there. A lot. And I've seen Steve there too, and he _is_ dead, so it must be another timeline. I just… I didn't want to let it go."

"It was what you wanted for yourself," Helena says.

You let out a harsh laugh. "No, not at first. At first it was terrifying, what it all meant. And it's still not… I saw things that were horrible, that I guess I should be relieved that it's not real, but I think… I think it might have been worth it. For how happy w—for how happy I was. And I was _so_ in love."

When you look back up at her she's nodding. "She was very lucky."

"No, I was."

It takes her a moment to respond, and you wonder if you should throw caution to the wind and kiss her, just like you told yourself you would, but then she stands and the moment has passed.

"I shall endeavor to determine the source of your… of your flashforwards," she tells you. "I dare say I am rather more knowledgeable about time travel than anyone else who has ever lived."

* * *

Pete is waiting in the kitchen to high-five you the next morning. Claudia's at the table with the metronome and pretends she doesn't hear you come in.

"Saw H.G. come out of your room last night," he says, a spoonful of Rice Crispies halfway to his mouth. "You tell her?"

"I told her…" you sigh, "some of it. Not the parts about her. I chickened out."

Claudia raises her eyebrows. "You?"

"I've just…" you shrug. "I've been waiting for this moment for so long, and now… I don't know how to tell her."

"You just have to do it. Like a band-aide." Pete mimes ripping a band-aide off his forearm.

You glare at him. "You want to do it for me?"

"Sure!" He stands up and turns toward the doorway. "I'll do it right now."

"No!" You grab for his arm, but he dodges you. "Wait! It has to come from me."

"What has to come from you?" Helena asks. She's holding a slice of toast, and she slides into Pete's vacated seat.

"Hey!"

Pete frowns at her as he picks is bowl back up and takes the empty seat across from you instead.

"Oh, nothing. I broke something of Artie's." You wave it off.

"What was it?" she asks. "I may be able to repair it before he's any the wiser."

"I don't think so," you reply shortly.

"Are you sure? I'm quite good with artifacts," Helena says.

"Yeah," Pete says. "We remember."

Claudia slides the metronome closer to her plate, like she's afraid Helena might try to steal it.

"You know, you don't have to bring that up at every opportunity," Helena points out. "I'm trying to help."

"Yeah, but part of having a big family…" Pete gestures around the table, "is you never get to forget anything."

"Mommy, why don't I have any sisters or brothers?"

You hear Kate's voice before you see her. She's sitting at the kitchen table, filling in a worksheet that you assume is homework. You're on the other side of the counter washing your hands. There's a cucumber sitting on the counter next to the sink that you must have been about to slice.

"Because we knew we couldn't possibly be any happier than we were the moment we had you," you reply. It's the answer you remember a friend's mother giving her when you were children.

"Why don't I have lots of cousins?" Kate asks.

"You have cousins," you say. "Abby and Jake are your cousins."

"But they're old," Kate sighs. "Abby can drive already. Why don't I have cousins on Mama's side?"

"Mama was an only child, just like you." It's the answer Helena's given anyone who's asked for as long as you've been together.

Kate groans. "This family is boring. My family tree's going to be the smallest in the class."

She throws her pencil down on the table and slouches back in her chair.

"Hey." You dry your hands off and go to sit next to her. "You know what's wrong with these family trees? They only show the people you're related to by birth. Those people aren't your only family."

"They're not?" Kate asks.

"Of course not," you answer. "Your real family is made up of the people you surround yourself with who are most important to you. Sometimes it's your birth family, and sometimes it's not. There's nothing wrong with having a family with mostly people who aren't related to you. That's what I had."

"Why?" Kate asks.

"It's complicated," you answer. "Now, let's see what you've got."

You look down at the worksheet. "Okay, you've got the three of us, Grandma, Aunt Tracey and Uncle Kevin, Abby and Jake." You lean back in your chair. "Is there anyone else that you think is your family, even though they're not related to you?"

Kate perks up. "Uncle Pete."

You nod at the paper. "Write him down. Anyone else?"

"Aunt Claudia," Kate says.

"Great," you answer.

"And Uncle Steve and Aunt Leena?" Kate asks.

"Don't ask me," you reply. "It's your family."

You watch Kate carefully form the letters on the paper. She definitely got her penmanship from you. You can barely read anything Helena writes. Thank god for the typewriter, or you're not sure how anyone would have read her novels.

"There, that looks better, doesn't it?"

"—and Myka never lets me forget the time I tried to get on a plane to Toronto when we needed to be in Sacramento. Right, Mykes?"

Pete is looking at you expectantly.

"What?" you ask.

Pete crumples up his paper towel and tosses it at you. "You've got to try to keep your head out of the clouds." He shakes his head and looks at Helena. "Talking to her is like trying to hold a conversation with a kid in a toy store. There's always somewhere else more interesting."

* * *

It happens on your birthday.

You're turning thirty, but Pete seems to be under the impression that you're turning nineteen, so you pile into the SUV with Helena and Claudia and Steve and Leena, and Pete drives the hour to Rapid City, where Jiminy's Restaurant & Bar is having a karaoke night.

You all have a shot while Pete sings "Life Is a Highway." Claudia flips through the binder, complaining about how they don't have any of her music, and then Steve requests Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway" for her, and you all pretend you don't see the tears in her eyes as she sits back down. Claudia orders another round for everyone but Pete. Pete tries to talk Steve into singing with him, but Steve refuses. Helena says she wants to try, so Pete whispers something in the DJ's ear while she figures out where to hold the microphone, and then she's attempting to stutter along to "One Week." Leena does a surprisingly powerful rendition of "Wind Beneath My Wings." Helena orders another round as the restaurant begins to clear out, because it is a Thursday night, after all. Claudia suggests you sing something, and everyone at the table chants your name for an awkward minute. Pete and Steve sing "It's Gonna Be Me." Everyone except Pete has another shot. Claudia drags Steve back on stage and they sing an increasingly offkey variation of "Bad Romance." Pete refuses to leave until you sing something, and Helena cheers you on, and you know you can't turn her down, so you choosing "Burning Love," and you stagger to the microphone.

You and Claudia throw up in a bush outside, and then Pete ushers you into the front seat and hands you a garbage bag that you're not sure where he got.

When you get back, Steve and Leena take Claudia into the kitchen to drink some water because she still can't quite walk straight.

Pete bumps your shoulder with his fist, "You were on fire," and disappears into his room.

"Well." Helena turns toward you. She's smiling all the way up to her eyes. You haven't seen her smile like this since before the trident. "Happy birthday."

You don't think before you kiss her. You just lurch toward so abruptly that it makes you feel vaguely dizzy.

"You're drunk," she mutters against your mouth.

"Not anymore," you answer. You are a little, but you've had sexual experiences drunker that you didn't really regret except for the fact that they were with men.

And you know you won't regret this. You've wanted it for years.

You're standing between a staircase and a front door in a house you recognize as the one where you live with Helena and Kate. Helena is making her way down the stairs, and Kate is standing in front of you, wearing a sparkly blue dress that you've seen her in before.

"Oh good," Helena says. "You're home."

"Home and drunk," you answer.

"I am not drunk," Kate argues.

"You wreak of alcohol," you say. It's true. The strong, perfume-like scent of dragon fruit-flavored Parrot Bay fills the foyer.

"So?" Kate shrugs. "Someone spilled a drink on me."

"Kate." Helena comes to the bottom of the stairs and stands beside her, one eyebrow raised. "Were you drinking?"

Kate deflates. "Yes."

It irritates you that Kate will swear to you up and down that she didn't do something, but all Helena has to do is ask and she admits to it right in front of you.

"How much?"

"I had some rum out of a flask and then…" she pauses to think. "A coke with something in it and two beers."

"How did you get back here?" you demand. "Did you get in the car with someone who had been drinking?"

"No, Mom." Kate rolls her eyes. "God, how dumb do you think I am?"

"Why did you decide to drink?" Helena asks. "This doesn't seem like you."

"Did someone pressure you into it?" you ask.

"No." Kate groans. "I just wanted to try it once. I'm not going to live long enough to do it legally."

Helena's head snaps back toward her. "Of course, you are. Don't say that."

Kate's expression softens. "Mama, get real. It's my third relapse."

Helena rests her hands on Kate's arms. "You can't think like that, my dear. This clinical trial will work."

"I'm on my way out," Kate insists. "Everyone knows it. Mom does." She looks at you. "I can see it in your eyes." She turns back to Helena. "And Dr. Swinton knows it. And I know it."

"You. Are. Not." She hugs Kate so tightly it looks painful. "I won't lose you."

Kate's arm snake around Helena. "I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I know this is hardest for you."

Helena is kissing you back now, but she stops when you still. She pulls away.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm…" you furrow your brow, "fine."

"We should stop," she says.

"No," you answer quickly. "No, it's not… it's not this. I—I just saw something. I had a flashforward. It wasn't what I… I want this."

Helena smiles at you. "We've both been drinking. We should… consider talking about this when we're of sound mind."

"I _am_ of sound mind."

You sound like you're whining, and you wrinkle your nose in distaste.

Helena leans in and kisses you on the cheek.

* * *

"Happy birthday, Myka," she repeats. She's still close that you can feel her breath against your cheek.

You don't talk about it for almost a week. You keep hoping Helena will bring it up, but she never does, so you follow her lead.

You're sitting outside on the back steps. You can see the stars better here than anywhere you've ever lived before, and probably better than anywhere you will live again. Normally, Pete would be out here with you, pointing out constellations. He usually never misses an opportunity to talk about something when he knows more about it than you do.

"That's not just the big dipper," Pete is telling you. You're sitting in the grass a few feet off the back steps with Kate wiggling around in your lap. Pete is lounging, propped up on one elbow, so his head is level with hers.

He points up at the stars. "See the tail right there? And the legs? That's Ursa Major. The great bear. You can use it to find the North Star."

Kate yawns, and you can feel her head drooping against your stomach. You pick her up and stand her in front of you.

"Alright, it's time to get you home. Why don't you go find Mama?"

You watch her run inside. God, she can't be older than four.

"What gives?" Pete asks. "It's only…." He trails off, feeling around in his jeans for his phone.

"She has to get up early tomorrow. We're taking her to the D-O-C-T-O-R," you explain. "Helena thought she felt something hard when she was giving her a bath last week."

He looks up at you. "Do you know what it is?" he asks. "Is it serious?"

You nod. "Yeah, I know what it is."

He looks over his shoulder toward the Bed & Breakfast. "If anything happens to that kid, Myka, I swear to god…"

When someone sits down beside you on the steps, you expect it to be Pete.

"One hundred and ten years in the bronze and I can no longer see the stars in London," Helena comments.

You glance in her direction without answering.

You've worked in comfortable silence with Helena before, after she was reinstated at the Warehouse the first time. The silence that passes between you now is loaded and awkward.

You take a deep breath.

"You don't want this."

Helena sighs deeply. "Of course, I do."

"Why haven't you said anything?" you ask. "You said we'd talk about… we never talked about it."

"Myka, I was waiting for you," Helena answers. "I thought you would come to me. When you didn't I…. well, I assumed you regretted it. I thought you wanted to carry on without a word, so that's what I did."

You look at her. She's staring at her hands. Her fingers are twisting and pulling. You always thought of her as confident, commanding, so headstrong that she'll do whatever it takes to accomplish the task she's set her mind to. For the first time, you start to consider that she's been just as anxious as you have this past week.

"Why would you think that?"

"You were inebriated—"

"I wasn't drunk," you insist. "I don't regret it."

You reach toward her, your hand shaking, and touch her wrist. She looks at you, turns her palm up so you can lace your fingers together.

You take a moment to revel in it, holding hands with Helena in the present day for the first time. Her hands are warm and calloused and you fit together.

When you kiss her this time, it's more like what you imagined: the two of you under the stars, with only the chirping crickets and chilly June breeze for company.

* * *

You're naked and sweaty and you bury your head in the pillow because you know you're about to start crying. You're _not_ going to cry after sex. God, you can't think of a worse time for this to be happening.

It's like something out of one of your sister's favorite rom-coms. You can't believe you're doing it.

"Myka, what wrong?" Helena asks.

You shake your head and try to maintain your dignity, but you sniffle and you know she hears it.

She mattress beside you shifts.

"We never have to do this again if you don't want to," she tells you, her voice strained . "If you think it was a mistake—"

"I definitely want to," you interrupt, your voice muffled in the pillowcase.

"Are you sure? I won't pretend I wouldn't be disappointed, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time."

You turn your head so you can peek out at her. She's laying on her back, staring at the ceiling.

"I'm sure," you insist. "I just…" you sigh and bury your face again. Your cheeks are burning. "I didn't know it could feel like that—I mean… I didn't know it could mean something."

It takes Helena a moment to respond. "You must have had a rotten sex life."

It's only half true. Sam was actually very good in bed, if only you'd been attracted to him, but you can tell she's uncomfortable, so you just reply, "Mmm."

"Do you want me to leave?" she asks.

"Oh my god, Helena. Stop. We're in _your_ bed." You scoot closer to her and wrap your arm around her waist. "I thought you were supposed to be the debonair heartbreaker."

"Most of the women I entertained didn't stay long enough to have their hearts broken," Helena admits. "I did know couples, of course. I knew other women who were comfortable with themselves. I just wasn't lucky, I suppose. It was rarer then, to find someone like that. And I suppose a part of me enjoyed the challenge."

"Is that why we only ever hear stories about your many gentlemen callers?" you ask. You're smiling, but she doesn't.

She sighs. "I'm not especially accustomed to casually discussing my affairs with women. Acceptance in those days was hard to come by."

"Did you think I was going to kick you out?" you ask her. She still won't look at you.

"It certainly seemed like a possibility," she says. "After all, it's not as if you openly discuss your affairs with women either."

"Only because there haven't been any."

She does look at you then, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open. "Myka…"

"So you know I've given this a lot of thought," you continue. "I know what it means. I wouldn't have done it if I wasn't sure it was what I wanted. I care about you too much to dine and dash."

She looks confused, and you know you'll have to explain the euphemism later. You lean in to kiss her, and after a moment of hesitation, she kisses you back.

* * *

It's a surprise to wake up with Helena next to you. It's not that you forgot—you definitely remember everything—but you think maybe you dreamed it because it feels too good to be true. These kinds of things don't happen to you.

And then you roll over and there she is, hair in her face and one bare shoulder visible over the top of the sheet.

There's a part of you that's shocked she didn't leave, after how uncertain she seemed last night.

You run your fingers up her arm, and she blinks awake and smiles at you.

"Hi," you say, because you can't think of anything else. You hate how it sounds when it comes out of your mouth. You _recognize_ it.

Steve is alive again, and it could be the future.

Your stomach twists unpleasantly, but you push it from your mind as Helena wraps her arm around your waist and scoots close enough to kiss you, just like she did before. You feel her try to tip you onto your back, but you roll on top of her instead.

"Is that how it's going to be?"

You're saved from having to come up with a response that sounds adequately sexy by the buzzing of Helena's phone. You sigh and reach over to take it off the nightstand and hand it to her.

"Artie," she breathes. Even if you didn't already know, you would have known. Helena doesn't get a lot of calls, and anyone else would have just knocked on her door.

"We must have a ping."

"Leave it," you tell her, your lips on her neck. You feel her shiver. "They can handle one intake without us."

"Myka, what has gotten into you?"

She raises one eyebrow and tries to smirk, but her breath keeps catching as your fingers trail across her hip.

"You."

Helena presses her head back into the pillow and laughs. "Right, you are."

She pulls you down to kiss you, and you don't think about the future for a while.

* * *

When you finally arrive an hour and a half later with Helena two steps behind you, Pete catches your eye, jerks his head toward her, raises his eyebrows. You look away, and you know he's going to corner you at the next opportunity and make you tell him exactly what you said and what she said, and you swear to god he'd love romantic comedies if he was just willing to watch them.

You walk out to the SUV with him. You're on your way to Rapid City to fly to Toronto for some hockey player. He holds his hand up to high five you before you get in the car.

"I know what a walk of shame into work looks like," he tells you. "And that was it."

You hesitate, and then you smile despite yourself and high five him back.

"Yes!" He pumps his fist as he goes to the driver's side door. "You did it. After two years of moping and pining, you finally banged H.G. Wells. How was it?"

You open the door and climb into the car. "It was fine," you answer.

He groans and rolls his eyes. "Come on, Mykes. Give me the deets. How was it?"

"It was… really good," you tell him. "It was amazing. I didn't know… I didn't know it could make you feel so… complete."

"You big softy." He says it like an accusation, but he's smiling.

"I…" You hesitate, but you decide to tell him because you know you will eventually. "I cried a little bit. And then she got really… she got really self-conscious. If anyone else ever finds out about that, I'll end your life without thinking twice."

You see Pete biting his lips—biting back a joke—but he eventually swallows it and nods. "So, definitely gay, huh?"

"Yeah." You nod. "Definitely gay." The smile drops off your face. "It's not weird, is it? I know there's a difference between just saying I am and actually being with—"

"Myka," Pete interrupts. You stop at a red light, and he looks at you. When he speaks again, his voice is firm. "It is not weird. I'm really happy for you. H.G.'s…. well, she's great… in her own way. And other people might act like it's weird, but it's not. Just remember that, okay? As long as you're happy, I'm happy."

You look away, out the passenger-side window. "Thanks, Pete."

Pete nods back as he turns back to the road.

"Where is she?" you hear Pete ask through the door of the room you share with Helena.

"She's inside," Helena answers. "She's… quiet."

"Can I…"

There are a couple seconds of silence and then, "Yes. Yes, I think she'd like to see you."

The door creaks open and Pete slips into the room.

"Hey," he says, his voice low as he sits down on the corner of the mattress next to the footboard. "I heard it didn't go so great."

You shake your head. "I thought it… I knew it wouldn't," you whisper. "My dad's not…" You sigh. "He doesn't like disappointment. I just feel like I should have been ready for this."

"Myka," he reaches across the bed and takes your hand. "No one should ever have to be ready for anything like this. You have done nothing to disappoint him."

You shake your head. "I'm always doing something. First it was being more interested in camping than ballet and majoring in English instead of something _useful_ , and then joining the Secret Service, and then thinking about leaving the Secret Service, and now it's this."

"If you can't win with him, why even try?" Pete asks you. "Why not live your life how you want to live it, and to hell with what he thinks."

You sniffle. "That's easy for you to say. Your mom's been proud of everything you've ever done."

"I know," Pete answers. "And I've asked myself—I have—what I did to deserve a mom like her when you got a dad like him, but sometimes you just have to… sometimes you just have to deal, you know?"

You nod. "Yeah."

"—can't believe we're going to meet Mike Madden," Pete is saying when you come back. "I loved hockey as a kid. I never played it—it's an expensive sport—but we used to go to games. I was seventeen when the Blue Jackets were founded. They're not any good, they never have been, but my mom used to take me and my sister sometimes, and—"

"Hang on," you tell him. You pull your phone out of your back pocket. "I missed a call from my sister this morning. I just remembered."

"Yeah, you did," he answers, and for a moment, you think he's going to offer you another high five.

 _Hi. Myka, it's me_ , you can practically hear Tracey's smile on the other end of the line. _I was really hoping to catch you, but I guess you're still asleep—no, you're probably already at work. Anyway, I should wait to actually tell you but… I can't. I have to get it out. I'm pregnant! Call me back! Love you!_

You drop the phone.

* * *

You kiss Helena when you get back to Leena's. Steve looks like he's just been told a really good secret and Claudia might melt. Leena pats you on the shoulder and gives you a soft smile.

"How was Canada?" Helena asks.

"Fine." You shoot Pete a dirty look, and he shrugs.

Claudia raises her eyebrows. "That bad, huh?"

"You could say that," Pete answers. "Mykes got whammied."

"What'd it do?" Claudia asks. She leans forward in her chair. "Did you blow up like a balloon? Almost freeze to death? Did you get turned into a flesh-eating zombie again?"

Helena looks back at you. "Again?"

"No," you answer. "And I never actually ate any flesh. But I have some bigger news. My sister's pregnant. I'm going to be an aunt. I'm going to get to hold a new life in my arms."

"That's so great!" Leena says. "Do you know when she's due?"

"Um, January, I think?" you answer. "She wasn't making a lot of sense when I called. Too excited."

"Congratulations," Helena tells you, her eyes wistful.

Christina died so long ago that it could have been in your high school history textbook. It's easy to forget that, for Helena, it will always feel like it happened yesterday.


	9. Chapter 9

You love your sister, but you don't like her right now.

You know she was whammied, and you know she never would have said those things to you under other circumstances, but there was some truth to what she said.

She's leaning back against the side of the crib looking at the mountain of trash in the middle of the nursery, obviously confused, and you know that, despite how she made you feel, you're still going to help her clean this mess up because she's your little sister.

"Listen, Tracey," you begin. "When you were, um… when you were coming back to consciousness, you said some things, and I thought maybe we should talk—"

"Myka," Pete calls from the hallway.

"Just a second!" you answer. You turn back to her. "Tracey, you said something about naming my mole, which I…" you roll your eyes and wave your hands, "don't care about anymore, of course, but you also said I was jea—"

"Myka!" Pete calls again. His voice is more urgent this time. You can tell that something is wrong.

"Okay, just a second," you tell her, standing up. "Wait another minute before you try to get up."

Pete is talking to Chloe on his Farnsworth in the hall. He looks up at you when he hears you approaching.

"Something's wrong at the Warehouse."

"Why?" you ask. "What makes you say that?" You turn to Claudia. "Is Josh okay?"

"He's fine," Pete answers for her. "Artie lied to Claudia…" he nods toward the Farnsworth, "about where her brother was, and he hung up on me when that tattoo box was burning me from the inside out. He just hung up. He never does that."

"Well, he's distracted," you say with a shrug. "Brother Adrian is in the Warehouse a-a-and Artie said the database is down."

"Yeah, except that it's not," Claudia replies. "I set up a remote testing system. It checks in every few minutes. I would have gotten the alert."

You turn to Pete. "Why would Artie say that?"

"I don't know," Pete sighs. "We need to get back to the Warehouse right now."

"Right now" turns out to be eight hours later, because there isn't a flight from Colorado Springs to Rapid City today.

You know something is wrong as soon as you get to the Warehouse. Mr. Kosan's car is there, and so is Pete's mom's.

Pete is already standing outside, the door of his car still open. He's talking to Leena with his arms tightly crossed. You can tell she's been crying. Her brown floral shirt is stained with blood.

She starts crying again when she sees you.

"I'm so, _so_ sorry, Myka," she sobs, shaking her head. "I'm so sorry."

"What's going on?" You ask slowly. You turn to Pete. "Why's your mom here? Where are Helena and Artie?"

Pete sighs. "Rapid City Regional Hospital." He takes your arm and guides you toward his car. "Come on, I'll explain on the way."

Helena is still in surgery when you arrive at the hospital. By the time she gets out, Claudia and Leena have arrived.

"She's spending the night in Intensive Care," the doctor tells you. "She's stable. We're hoping to transfer her to a different unit tomorrow."

So you go to a motel and pay for two rooms. Pete takes one in anticipation of Steve's arrival, and you, Leena, and Claudia pile into the other.

You're slumped on the end of the bed pulling off your shoes when Claudia stops in front of you, hands fidgeting at her sides.

"What, Claud?" you ask without looking up.

"I know she's not Jewish," Claudia says. She shoves her hands into the pockets of her pants. "But, um… do you want to say Mi Shebeirach?"

* * *

When you go back in the morning, Helena is awake and higher than the heels Tracey wore to prom her sophomore year.

"Myka!" she exclaims when she sees you. "You look beautiful. And Claudia, has your hair always been that red? Does anyone know what time it is? No one will tell me."

"10:32 in the morning, H.G.," Claudia answers as she flops down on the side of the bed.

"How do you feel?" You press a kiss against her hair.

"I feel amazing," Helena murmurs. "I feel like I'm a cloud. Or maybe a whale."

You sink into the chair beside the bed and lace your fingers through hers.

"There's the woman of the hour!" Helena exclaims when Leena walks in. "My guardian angel! My guiding light!" She turns to Myka conspiratorially. "She saved my life." She's trying to whisper, but the people in the hallway can probably still hear her.

"Hey, hey, hey." Pete leans toward Leena in his chair. "We didn't hear that."

"Because it wasn't a big deal." Leena waves him off. "I had to Tesla Artie. It was horrible."

"She was like that superheroine," Helena continues. "Wonder Woman. Just when death was closing in. I could feel her unrelenting embrace."

"Leena, what happened?" you ask. "I didn't know you were there when… when it actually…"

Leena sinks into the chair on the other side of the bed. "I was talking to Artie, and I got the call from Mrs. Frederic. She told me brother Adrian was in Rome, and Artie was—he wasn't making sense. He was talking to himself, he was confused, and that's when H.G. showed up. I guess Trailer got her—"

"I'm renaming him Lassie!" Helena cuts in.

"And Mrs. Frederic told me to leave and H.G. practically pushed me down the next aisle… so I started to go, and then I heard gunfire, and I knew I had to do something, so I grabbed a Tesla." Her voice cracks, and Claudia rests a hand on her back. "And when I got back, Artie was standing over H.G. holding a gun. He looked roughed up; I guess H.G. tried to take it from him, so I Tesla-ed him before he could shoot her again, and I threw my shirt on her to try to stop the bleeding, and that's when I called Mrs. Frederic."

"Why did you apologize to me yesterday?" you ask.

"I just feel like if I hadn't left in the first place, Artie might not have—"

"Leena, if you hadn't left, you might have been shot too," you tell her. "Thank you." You reach across the bed and squeeze her hand. "Seriously. Thank you."

She nods. Her chin is shaking like she might start crying.

"No one really flies kites anymore, do they?" Helena asks you.

Helena's hand is still in yours, but you're standing in the doorway of the kitchen you recognize from the house where you and H.G. live. Leena is sitting at the table with Kate. A half a dozen jars of paint lie open before them.

"I think it could use a little blue," Leena says to Kate. "What do you think?"

Kate smiles and dips her fingers into the jar of light blue paint. She dabs it onto the paper in front of her. She can't be more than eight or nine, old enough to take care in what she's creating but not too old to delight in the feel of paint between her fingers.

"No, I guess not," you answer. "I hadn't noticed. We still had kites when I was a kid. We didn't make them, though. They were plastic and we bought them at Wal-Mart."

Helena clicks her tongue and shakes her head.

Kate reaches up and smears blue paint across Leena's cheek.

She laughs, "Hey!"

She dips her own fingers in pink and dabs it onto the tip of Kate's nose.

Helena squeezes her hand. She's back in the bed with an IV attached to her arm. "You look like you were dreaming. Were there unicorns?"

* * *

Helena falls asleep early, and the others get up to leave.

"The car Steve drove is down in the parking lot," Pete tells you. He squeezes your shoulder. "Try to get some sleep."

"If she wakes up, tell her we'll be back tomorrow," Claudia adds.

The lights are dim in the hospital room, and you can hear Helena's slow breathing. You take a moment to watch her sleep. Helena has cheated death in every way imaginable, and it seemed too much to hope that she would be lucky again.

But here she is, alive and snoring to prove it.

You fish your phone out of your back pocket. There are three missed calls from Tracey, probably because of the way you and Pete rushed off yesterday, and a missed call from your mother, probably because Tracey told her you were in town and didn't visit her.

You tap Tracey's name and hold the phone to your ear. It rings twice before she picks up.

"Myka? I'm so glad you called me back! What happened yesterday? I was worried."

"There was a problem at my office," you answer. "Pete and I had to get back to help."

"What was it?" she asks. "Is everything okay?"

"Not… not really," you answer. "One of my…" It feels wrong to call Helena a coworker. "One of my friends was shot. She's stable. I'm at the hospital with her now."

"Oh no! Myka!" Tracey exclaims. "You know, sometimes I forget that your job is dangerous."

"Listen, I wanted to tell you something yesterday, before we got pulled out—"

"Oh, right, the mole thing," Tracey replies. "I'm sorry about that. I was thirteen. It was stupid—"

"It's not—it's not the mole thing, Tracey. You said some other things that… that I wanted to talk to you about." You sigh. "You accused me of being jealous of you because of your husband and because I'm not married. You said that I've always been jealous of you." You swallow. "Do you really think that?"

"Oh, Myka…" There's a long break on the other end of the line.

"Three years ago, you would have been right," you admit. "For a long time, all I wanted was for things to be easy like they were for you. Fitting in, dating, living the life Mom and Dad wanted me to. It all came so naturally to you, and I was always too loud or too stubborn or too boyish. But… but I've realized that's not what I want."

"What, the house with the husband and the kid?" Tracey asks.

"No, I do want the house and the kid someday, but…" you take a deep breath and exhale slowly, "I want them with a wife."

There is silence on the other end of the line.

"Tracey?" you ask after a moment. You can feel your heart beating in your fingertips. "Are you still there?"

"Yeah," she sighs. "Yeah, Myka, I am." She pauses. "Are you saying you're…" she trails off.

"Gay?" you ask. "Yeah, Trace, that's what I'm saying. Is that… are you okay with that?"

There are another few seconds of silence, and then, "Yeah. Of course, I am. You're my sister."

"Good," you breathe.

"Have… have you told Mom and Dad yet?" she asks.

"No," you answer. "And I'm not sure when I going to, so don't say anything to them. I just have this feeling they're not going to take it very well."

You still have no idea if what you're seeing is the future or some other timeline, and at this point, you've gone back and forth on it so many times you've lost count, but this, you're sure of.

"You know, I'm not even that surprised. It makes sense," Tracey tells you. She hesitates. You can almost hear her thinking over the phone line. "You've always been so brave."

"It's not bravery. It's just—" you start to tell her, but she cuts you off.

"I remember when we were kids and I broke something or ruined something or got something dirty, you used to say you did it so Dad wouldn't yell at me because it made me cry. I remember when you punched that guy who stood me up for homecoming freshman year and got detention for a week. You've always been there for me, and I thanked you by naming your mole, so this time I'm going to be there for you." She pauses to take a breath, and you want to say something in response, but you're not sure what.

"Do you have someone?"

"What?"

"Are you seeing anyone?"

"Oh." You let your eyes slide over to Helena, still asleep beside you. "Yeah, I am. The friend, the one I told you about who… who got shot."

Tracey gasps. "Oh my god, Myka."

"Her name's Helena. She's been my friend for… for years, and there were some complications but that's…" you wave your hand, "that's not important. The relationship is new, but… the love isn't."

"Do you know if she's the one?" Tracey asks.

You smile. "I'm positive."

"Oh, I'm so happy for you," Tracey gasps. "You deserve this, you know? You deserve this after everything. And I want to meet her."

"I hope you will."

"Helena, it's so good to see you. Congratulations."

You're in a hospital, but the room is different. There are balloons and flowers and stuffed animals, and you're the one in the bed.

Tracey hugs Helena. Kevin is trailing behind her, holding another basket of flowers and a balloon that says, "It's A Girl!" in pink bubble letters.

Tracey turns to you. "Oh, there she is. Look, Kevin! Our niece!"

Tracey hurries to your bedside as Kevin deposits the flowers on the table at the end of the bed. Helena sits down on your other side and brushes a strand of hair out of your face.

Tracey peers at the bundle in your arms. "I can't believe I'm an aunt."

"You've been a mother for nine years," you point out. "This can't be that exciting."

"Of course, it is," Tracey coos at the bundle. "I don't have to change this one's diapers. You went with Catherine?"

"We're calling her Kate," Helena says. "At Myka's behest. She assures me that it's going to get shortened anyway, and we might as well decide what it gets shortened to."

Kate yawns and stretches her arm out. Her fist is no larger than the bouncy balls you used to get out of the vending machine at the grocery store.

"Look at her," Tracey gasps. "Myka, you have such a beautiful family."

"Tell that to the nurses," you mutter. Helena's hand comes to your shoulder.

Tracey cocks her head. "What do you mean?"

"They're giving us funny looks," you answer. "Pete was here yesterday, and they were fine until they found out he wasn't the father."

"Do you want me to go talk to them?" Kevin asks, already moving toward the door.

"No, no," you answer quickly. "That'll just make it worse. We're going home tomorrow anyway."

"If we'd determined confrontation was the most appropriate course of action, I assure you, I'd have taken care of it already," Helena adds, the hand on your shoulder tightening.

"Myka, you still there?" Tracey asks.

"Yeah, sorry," you say into the phone, shaking your head. "I'm just tired. It's been a long day."

"I should let you get some sleep," she says. "You will sleep, right?"

"Funny," you reply. "Pete had the same concern."

"I know how you like to take care of people," Tracey says. "I remember that time Dad got sick with… whatever he had. You worked around the clock."

"I promise, I'll try to sleep," you answer. "Goodnight, Tracey."

"Goodnight," Tracey answers. "I love you, Myka."

"Love you too."

* * *

"Helena?" you call. The door of her room is cracked, and you push it open.

"In here!" she answers from the bathroom. When she steps out to meet you, she's holding a washrag to her back, just below her ribcage, where you know her exit wound is.

"Are you bleeding?" you ask.

"Just a tad," she answers. She's trying to wave it off, but you can feel your heartrate increase.

"For how long?" you demand, grabbing her shoulder and turning her so you can look at the wound. "They said to come back if you had bleeding that didn't stop after applying pressure for five minutes.'

"It hasn't been that long," she answers unhelpfully.

You sigh. "Is that a clean rag? Did you wash your hands?"

She doesn't answer immediately, and you brush past her into the bathroom, pushing your sleeves up as you turn on the water.

"Myka, it's not a big deal," she says.

You shake your head. "You could get an infection. Do you want to be back in the hospital again?"

You fish under the sink for one of the bandages she was given when she was released and unwrap it.

"Lie down," you tell her.

She climbs onto the bed and lays on her stomach, and you pull the hand holding the bloodied rag away. She groans when you press the bandage to the wound.

"Sorry," you say.

She shakes her head. "Please. I gave birth without an anesthetic at seventeen years old, and I was quite the rough and tumble child. I know how to handle pain."

You chuckle, "I think if I'd been alive then, that would have put me off the idea of having children altogether."

"As would the having sex with men," Helena points out. "That was the only way to do it then. Something I rather excelled in, of course, but I know it doesn't interest you."

"I always forget how different your life must have been before you were bronzed," you comment.

"Ha," Helena replies. "Sometimes, I wish I could stop remembering. I never would have survived this injury. I forgot, when it happened, how advanced medicine had become. I expected to die."

You're quiet for a moment, considering her.

"Do we need to have a conversation about your nonexistent sense of self-preservation?"

"I'd rather we didn't," she answers.

"Have you ever considered…" you hesitate, "talking to someone about it? A professional?"

"No," she answers flatly.

"Have you ever thought about… having a child?"

You're driving through a neighborhood. The street is lined with trees and two-story brick houses. You used to dream of living in a neighborhood like this when you were in elementary school.

You glance over at the passenger side of the car, where Helena's hands are twisting in her lap.

"Yes," you answer measuredly.

You expect her to elaborate, but when you reach a red light and look over at her, she simply purses her lips and looks out the window.

"Why?" you finally ask.

"Because, well… _I've_ been thinking about it. Quite a lot, actually." She clears her throat and shifts her gaze across her lap to your phone, leaning upside-down in the cupholder. The screen shows an album cover you're not familiar with but know that you love.

"What have you been thinking?" you ask slowly.

"That I might…" She takes a deep breath. "I've been thinking that I might want to have another child." She says it so quickly that it sounds like one, long word. "I might want to talk about it at least." She looks up at you. "What would you say to that?"

You look back at the road as the light turns green. You can't help the smile on your face. "I'd say I've been hoping you'd say that."

You see Helena frown at you out of the corner of your eye.

"Why didn't you say anything about it?" she huffs.

"I wasn't sure if you'd want to after Christina," you answer. "I didn't want you to think you were…" you shrug, "denying me of something. I know how self-sacrificing you get when you think you're burdening someone. I didn't want you to agree just because you felt guilty."

You feel her hand come to rest on your leg and squeeze.

"I wasn't sure I wanted to either," she admits. "For a long time, I couldn't imagine—and then last month when we were at your sister's, I was playing with Jake, and I just… _wanted_ it all of a sudden. I thought the feeling would wear off, but it hasn't."

And then you're back in Helena's room at the bed and breakfast pressing a bandage to her back.

"Is this about Christina?" you ask softly.

Helena shifts to look up at you as best she can.

"Try not to move," you tell her with your free hand on her shoulder.

"It is not—" she begins firmly, but then she sighs and deflates beneath you. "I have a hard time feeling concerned about the prospect of dying if it means I'll be wherever she is."

You swallow. You suddenly feel very out of your depth in this conversation.

"I can't tell you not to miss her," you begin. "I can't even imagine what that must feel like."

You feel a sort of phantom pain for the loss of a child who hasn't been born yet—who may not be born in this timeline at all—but you know it's not the same as the almost tangible pain Helena lives with.

"It feels like…" Helena pauses for a moment. "It feels like you're stuck in a dark hole and there's no way out, and you can see the light like a tiny pinprick in an all-black sky, and you remember what it was like to be up there, but you know you'll never be there again." She hesitates and you squeeze her shoulder.

"And then sometimes, occasionally, you forget that you're stuck in a hole; you think maybe it's just dark out right now, and the sun will come up soon, and everything will be as it was, and then you look up and you see the tiny light, and the weight of it becomes even more suffocating than it was before, and you wonder how you ever could have forgotten. You feel so guilty about forgetting, even for that split second when you first wake up in the morning. You feel like maybe it's a sign that you never deserved her in the first place, and maybe that's why she was taken from you."

It takes you a long time to speak again.

"Wow."

"Well, I am a writer, darling."

You lift the bandage carefully off the wound.

"You've stopped bleeding. Wait a second," you add as she starts to get up. "Let me get you a clean one."

You slip off the bed and back into the bathroom to fish another bandage out of the cupboard. You peel off the wrapping as you return to her bedside. You smooth the bandage over the spot, just below her ribs, where the bullet left her body.

"Thank you," she tells you as she sits up.

You lean forward and kiss her, your free hand on the back of her neck. You know you can't take her pain away with a kiss—that's something that only happens in the romance novels on the shelf buried in the back corner of your father's shop—but you try anyway.

* * *

Helena and Artie are both out of work for a while. Artie goes before the Regents, but because he was under the influence of an artifact and Helena is expected to make a full recovery, it's a relatively straightforward matter. When Helena offers to testify on his behalf, Mrs. Frederic tells her it won't be necessary.

Helena is restricted to light duty, and she is furious about it.

"We don't even do that much running," she's saying as you enter the Warehouse office, Pete behind you and Claudia and Steve in front. "I can aim and shoot a Tesla. That's all I need to be able to do."

"The last time I was in the field, we were taken hostage by a bunch of mobsters and I had to get us out of it myself. In heels," you argue.

"Good, you're here," Artie says without looking up. "There's been a series of falling deaths in Las Vegas. Pete, Myka—"

"Vegas!" Pete pumps both fists. "You know what they say, Mykes. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, which means…"

He points to you with both index fingers as if he wants to you finish. You shrug.

"I'm going to see Criss Angel," he says, clapping his hands together.

"Here's the file." Artie stands up and hands you a folder. "Flight's out of Rapid City in four hours."

His eyes slide over to Helena.

"Oh," he says. "You're back."

"I'm back," she repeats.

"You look well," he comments.

"Yes," she replies. "Well, I'm told that the survival rate for abdominal gunshot wounds has increased nearly ten-fold since I was bronzed. I suppose we're, as you say, even now."

Artie stares at her for a moment, and then shakes his head. "Good, well, we've been short-staffed and we're behind on inventory."

He hurries to the other side of the office and picks up a precariously stacked armful of clipboards. When he dumps them into Helena's arms, they pile so high she has to look around them to see him. He sets a ring of keys on top.

"You can take the cart."

"Oh yeah! That golf cart thingy." Pete turns to you. "I haven't seen that thing since we started. How come we never use it? We could do inventory in half the time."

"That's exactly why you never use it," Artie answers. "The only peace and quiet I get up here is when you all are down there." He points out the window into the Warehouse.

"Mama, why do you have two belly buttons?"

"Have you seen my light blue shirt? The one with the…" Helena straightens up and looks at you and Kate. "What?"

Kate is sitting beside you on a queen-sized bed in a room you think you've been in before. She's wearing a pink bandana and you can see short wisps of hair poking out from underneath. Helena is bustling around the chest-of-drawers, blouse unbuttoned, obviously looking for something.

"You have two belly buttons," Kate repeats. She scoots forward on the bed and pokes the pucker mark on the left side of Helena's stomach that you know, with a swoop of your stomach, is from a bullet.

She looks up at you, a question in her eyes, and you shrug. You have no idea how old a child should be before learning that her mother was shot.

"That's not a belly button, it's a scar," Helena answers. "I got it at work a long time ago."

"Did it hurt?" Kate asks.

Helena laughs as she picks her up. "It did hurt, but you know how tough I am."

"Did Mommy kiss to make it better?" she asks.

Helena's eyes drift to you briefly, before returning to your daughter. "Yes, she did."

"Fine, fine," Pete lifts his hands in surrender. "Come on, Mykes." He bumps your shoulder as he turns to leave. "There's a fake Eiffel Tower and a pair of really cool sunglasses with my name on them. Hope you're ready to recreate the last scene in _Ocean's Eleven_."

* * *

You're lying in your bed with Helena beside you. Now that she's stopped panting, she has gone silent, but you can tell from the speed of her breathing that she's still awake.

"I can hear you thinking," you say, rolling onto your side to face her. "What's up?"

"It's just that—" Helena breaks off, and you can tell that she's frustrated. "Say you knew something, and you knew I would want to know about it, but there was really no reason to tell me, and it would only upset me. Would you?"

You have to suppress a laugh.

"No," you answer.

"I won't ask why you were able to answer that so quickly," she replies. She hesitates. "I've learned something… something troubling."

"Is there anything you can to do to…" You don't know how to finish. Fix it? Stop it? Help?

She sighs. "No, what's done is done, and it _was_ for the best, but what I know about why it needed to be done makes me uneasy."

"Why?" you ask.

"Because of how close it came to being our reality," she says. "Well, yours. Let's just say I've gained some insight into what it's like to look into another timeline."

"Did you know about this?" Helena asks you.

She's looking up at you with wet, bloodshot eyes. She looks devastated. You feel a pain deep in your chest just from looking at her.

"Yes," you answer, because it doesn't seem like the time to lie.

"And you didn't tell me?" Helena stands up from the table and turns away from you, toward the window, her arms crossed.

"Would you have still wanted her if you'd known?"

Helena scoffs. "Of course, I—" She breaks off.

"Think about it," you tell her gently. "When we were first talking about it, before you knew her or who she would be, if I'd told you that this would happen… that you'd have to go through all this again, what would you have said?"

"I…" her shoulders slacken. "I don't know."

"And now that she's here, do you have any regrets?" you ask.

"No." She turns to look at you. "None."

The room is dark and you're back in bed.

"I don't think you should tell me," you say.

She turns her head to the side to look at you. "You don't want to know?"

"I definitely want to know," you answer. "But if you tell me, I'll probably just be mad at you for telling me. It's better this way."

She narrows her eyes. "That's unexpected."

"What can I say?" you reply. "I'm full of surprises." You waggle your eyebrows suggestively and she laughs.


	10. Chapter 10

Helena meets Tracey sooner than you intend. She shows up with only two hours' notice on the day before the beginning of Rosh Hashanah with a bag of apples, looking twice as pregnant as she did the last time you saw her.

She wraps her arms around you and presses a kiss to your cheek before you even have time ask her why she's here.

"It's been so long since you've been home for the High Holy Days," she says. "I thought I'd come to you. I should have called sooner. I just got so excited about it. Is this okay?"

"Of cour—of course, it is," you answer. You wrap your arm around her shoulders and lead her into the Bed and Breakfast.

"This is so cute," she gushes as she crosses the threshold.

"The Secret Service pays to run this place. My whole team lives here," you tell her. "They're not all here right now. Steve and Claudia are out on a case. Claudia and I usually celebrate together, but I don't know if she'll be back in time this year. It's been almost a week."

"I'm glad you have someone," Tracey comments. "Here I was, picturing you slaving over a brisket all by yourself."

"It's hilarious that you think either of us knows how to make a brisket," you say as you round the corner into the kitchen. Pete is standing in front of the coffee machine yawning, despite the fact that it's almost noon, and Helena is leaning against the opposite counter with a cup of tea beside her, reading a book.

"You met Pete," you say. "I think you called him my work husband." She rolls her eyes. "And this is Helena."

Tracey almost knocks over the tea as she throws her arms around her. "Oh, I've heard so much about you! Well, not that much because Myka _never_ returns my calls. It's so wonderful to meet you!"

Helena is holding the book, a paperback copy of _Stranger in a Strange Land_ that she took off your bookshelf, out of the way and looking hilariously confused.

"This is my sister," you tell her.

"Ah, I see," she answers tightly.

"What up, Trace?" Pete holds up a hand for her to high five as she pulls away from Helena. "You're looking good. Have you lost weight?"

You slap him on the arm with the back of your hand, and he looks wounded for about two seconds before losing interest.

"You know the sad thing?" your mother asks as she sits down beside you.

You're in the living room of your parents' house in Colorado Springs, sitting on the couch against the window, watching Helena talk to Tracey and Kevin. The mirror in the hallway is covered with a navy blue sheet, and Tracey looks like she's been crying.

"What?" you ask. It comes out raspy, like maybe you've been crying too.

"If he'd ever been willing to meet her, he would have loved her," your mother answers. She sighs and shakes her head.

You nod. "She's a writer, and she could have told him things about turn-of-the-century science fiction that he couldn't have learned from anyone else. She has the most incredible perspectives on the work of H.G. Wells."

"Myka, your father was very stubborn, like you—"

You cut her off. "You're not going to make this my fault."

"No, I'm not," she answers. "I just… well, I hope you'll remember the good times you had together, instead of everything at the end."

"You mean the part where he wouldn't speak to me for ten years?" you ask. "The part where he had no interest in the birth of his granddaughter? Neither of you did."

"You never called here either," she points out.

"Because I wasn't going to apologize for falling in love." Your voice is growing louder, and your mother lays a hand on your arm. "And I knew that was…" your voice breaks and you rub furiously at your eyes as they grow wet again, "I knew that was the only way he would take me back. If I swore it was all a mistake and he was right all along."

"Myka…"

"Or maybe the part where I could practically feel the disappointment radiating off of him every time we were in the same room for as long as I can remember," you say. "I hate to break it to you, Mom, but I don't have that many good memories of him."

"He loved you," she says. "In his way."

"Did he ever mention me?" you ask. "Did he mention me at all at the end?"

Your mother sighs and looks down at her feet. Your stomach twists.

"—of course, Mom was upset that we wouldn't be there this year, but I told her, there's always next year. They aren't that old," Tracey is telling Pete.

"Right," he answers distractedly. You can tell he noticed that you were gone. "My mom gets like that too."

Without a word, Helena takes a glass from the cupboard, fills it with water, and hands it to you. You nod at her in thanks.

"But enough about me." Tracey pulls out a chair and takes a seat, heaving a loud sigh. "How did you two meet?"

Helena looks at you sideways, and you can tell by her mildly panicked expression that she's not sure how much Tracey knows.

"I met her on a case," you answer. "It was before she was hired. She was doing some… investigating… of her own."

"My motives may not have been entirely pure." You expect Helena to elaborate, but she lets the sentence hang in the air as Tracey draws her own conclusions. "I was hired shortly thereafter."

"Did you fall in love right away?" Tracey is clutching the back of the chair she's sitting sideways on like a child being told a bedtime story.

Helena looks at you, waiting for an answer.

You sigh and look down at the tile floor. "Yeah, it was pretty much right away. It just took me a while to realize it. I was a little thrown off by the…" you gesture towards her, "woman thing."

"You didn't know you were gay?" Tracey asks, and, god, she makes it sound so simple.

You shake your head. You can feel yourself blushing.

"It certainly took me by surprise," Helena says, and you're so thankful to her for taking the attention off you that you could kiss her. "Not for the same reasons, but you could say I had a lot to think about while I was… while I was away."

"I'm sorry," you say as you close the door to Helena's bedroom behind you.

* * *

She looks up from where she's sitting cross-legged on top of the comforter. "Whatever for?"

"I shouldn't have told Tracey about us without talking to you," you say as you sit down on the side of the bed in front of her. "I just told her about me, and she asked me if I was seeing anyone, and it just kind of came out, and I never thought she'd show up unexpectedly like this. I thought we'd have more time, and—"

"Myka," Helena says firmly. "It's alright."

"It's not alright. I outed you," you reply. "I know everyone at the Warehouse knows but that's different, and I know you're not—I mean, you can't be used to being open about it like this, not where you're from."

She sets _Stranger in a Strange Land_ down on the bed. "No, I suppose not."

"I shouldn't have told my sister without talking to you first," you say. "Were you even ready for anyone in my family to know?"

"Well, I admit it did take me by surprise," she answers. "But she's your sister. And I may have only recently arrived in this century, but I have been at ease with my affections for women far longer than you have, so it seems to me that we're not on terribly uneven ground."

You nod. "You're right."

"I don't mind that you told your sister," she says. "I trust your judgment. You have always been the more cautious one."

"Okay."

"But when did you do it?" she asks. "I was under the impression you wanted to keep it from your family."

"I want to keep it from my parents," you answer. "It was right after you got shot. I was sitting in your hospital room watching you sleep and it just felt like the time."

"Ah, yes. Traumatic situations do have a way of making up reexamine our choices." Helena leans forward and covers you hand with her own. "I'm glad her reaction was so positive."

"Kate?" you say into the phone you're holding to your ear.

"Yeah, Mom, who else?"

"Other people call me," you say.

"Other than me and Uncle Pete, who calls you?"

"Aunt Leena calls me sometimes, and Aunt Tracey. And your mother."

You take a sip of coffee from the University of Oregon mug you're holding. You didn't go to Oregon, and you know Helena can't be teaching there because you're standing in your kitchen in Colorado.

"Sure," Kate says. You can almost hear her rolling her eyes.

"So what's up?" you ask.

It takes her a moment to answer, but you hear a deep sigh on the other end of the line.

"So, it turns out Austin's gay."

You grimace. "Wow, you really know how to choose them, huh?"

"It's not funny, Mom," Kate snaps. "God, I should have called Mama."

"Hey, hey, I'm not laughing," you answer. "I know how much you liked him." You pause to see if she'll respond. She doesn't. "How did you find out?"

"He told me," she says. "Last night."

"That was brave of him," you comment. "Kate, I know this has to be hard for you, but I hope you were supportive. It's not easy—"

"I know, I know. It sucks more for him," she says. "Of course, I was. How could I not be? He said you guys were the reason he knew he could tell to me first. I just… couldn't be mad at him."

"Does he… have you talked to him about how he thinks his family will take it?" you ask.

"He's from Sacramento," she answers. "He's got a cousin who's trans. He'll be fine."

"Good," you say. "He doesn't deserve…" You trail off. "He deserves to have everything go smoothly."

Kate is silent for a moment. When she speaks again, her tone is different, careful. "Mama told me Grandma didn't talk to you for like, ten years before I was born."

The statement takes you by surprise. You collect your thoughts for a moment before you answer.

"Yes." You take a slow breath. "The next time I spoke to her after I told them your mother and I were dating was at your grandfather's funeral."

"Is that why you never talk about Grandpa?" she asks.

"That's… one of the reasons," you answer. "He and I never had a good relationship. It started long before that."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

You sigh. "When Grandma came back into my life, she seemed genuinely sorry about what that happened, and she was obviously committed to having a relationship with you, and I didn't want to color how you thought about her."

"Oh," Kate says. "Was it… was it hard for you? To let her back in?"

"What are you thinking about?" Helena asks. You realize that you're staring down at your socks.

"Did anyone in your family know?" you ask. When you look up at her, she's grimacing at the comforter.

She sighs and reaches over to move a stack of papers sitting next to her. She pats the mattress beside her and you crawl across the bed and sit.

"I was very careful about it when Christina was alive," she says. "I worried that if my family found out they would take her from me. It wasn't exactly hard to keep quiet. I was never in a long-term relationship with a woman, and the women I slept with, for the most part, were as invested in secrecy as I was. After she died, I became more reckless. My sister found out."

You raise your eyebrows. "You had a sister?"

"Of course, darling, it was the last nineteenth century. You didn't think Charles was my only sibling, surely."

"Right," you say, even though you did.

"Well, she confronted me about it. It's a sin against god, unnatural, the rhetoric has hardly changed. I had started writing by that point, and I became aware that if Charles found out, he could hold it over me, given our arrangement, so I told her I was wrong, went to church with her, made sure I mentioned all of my male paramours to her. She eventually decided I must have gotten over it." She shrugs. "It was what it was. I can't say I'm terribly sorry to be rid of that particular aspect of having a family." She looks up at Myka and smiles thinly. "No one to disappoint."

You exhale slowly. "That must have been a lot to go through."

"We were all going through that back then," she answers. "It didn't seem like a big deal at the time. I mean it was terrible, of course, but not out of the ordinary. Those possibilities were the knowledge with which we lived our lives."

"I can't imagine what that must have been like."

"Can't you? Are you not living in your own fear as we speak?" she asks. "We found community with each other. It just wasn't something to mention in mixed company. But many thought of women as inherently asexual at the time, so we could be much more physically affectionate without anyone the wiser."

"So, I guess we're both a little out of our depth here," you say. You scoot closer to her and rest your head on her shoulder. She finally seems to give up on her book, and sets it on the nightstand.

"Where's your sister?"

You groan. "Asleep in my bed."

"You could have put her in Steve or Claudia's room," Helena points out. "Unless you were looking for an excuse to spend the night here."

You smile. "That was the plan."

* * *

You've been knocking on Pete's bedroom door for what feels like five minutes before he finally opens it.

"What's up?"

"Can I talk to you?" you ask. You nod towards the room behind him.

He steps back to let you in. "Oh! Yeah, sure. What's going on?"

You close the door behind you as he sits down on the end of his bed. You cross your arms and then uncross them and start to pace.

"I want to… I want to tell Helena… that I love her."

Pete leans back, bracing himself with his hands, and blows an exhale out through his mouth. "Wow."

"Yeah," you reply.

"Wow, this is—this is big." He leans forward again, elbows on his knees. After a moment, he looks up at you.

"Yeah, I just don't know…" you take a deep breath, try to slow yourself down, "how or when or… whether I should."

"Chhhh," Pete murmurs as the thinks. He furrows his eyebrows and then unfurrows them again. "You think she won't say it back?"

"No, I—I—I think she will," you say uncertainly.

"Then what's the problem?" Pete asks.

"I just…" You cross your arms again. "I want it to be right."

Pete looks up at you. "If you love her and she loves you, why wouldn't it be?"

You shrug as you study your socks.

Pete stands up and rests a hand on your shoulder. "Mykes, she's crazy about you. She always has been." He gives you a jiggle. "What are you so worried about?"

You pull away from him and turn to look out the window. "We just haven't been together that long," you explain. "What if I seem… I don't know, clingy or something? What if she thinks I'm trying to trap her?"

"Why would she think that?" Pete asks. "I mean, no, you haven't been together that long _officially_ , but you've been together so long emotionally that you're practically married."

You look at him over your shoulder, your eyebrows raised. "We've been together emotionally?"

"You know…" he gestures toward you and then in the general direction of Helena's room, "clearly in love, mutual pining, long, significant looks that make everyone else feel awkward?"

You turn back toward the window, lean to the side against the wall. "I don't know. Have you ever wondered why someone was with you at all?"

"Every day I was with Kelly," he answers. "Wait, is this about you not thinking you're good enough for her?"

You shrug. "She travelled through time, Pete. I took an entire class on her writing in college. She could do anything she wanted."

"So why should she want to stick around here and date you?" he asks. He comes to stand beside you.

"I just wonder if… if she wasn't here for the Warehouse, where we would be," you admit. "What if I tell her I love her, and she thinks it's stupid? Just some girl with a crush on her childhood hero."

"She is not going to think that," Pete tells you, and you're not sure you've ever heard him sound so serious in his life. He wraps his arm around you and gives your shoulder a squeeze. "Didn't you stop her from destroying the world because she couldn't bear to kill you?" he asks. "People don't do that for just some fan."

"What if she thinks I'm trying to replace her life with her daughter?" you ask. "What if she doesn't say it back?"

"I guess she might not," he says slowly. "It's not like H.G.'s got a great track record when it comes to dealing with her emotions. But, Myka, listen to me."

You look up at him.

"It won't be because she doesn't love you, and you shouldn't take it that way when it's so obvious she does."

* * *

By the time you tell her, you've really told her a dozen times: murmured it to her as she slept, whispered it into her thigh during sex, said it while the blow-dryer was running. Just to get used to saying it. Just so you know you'll be able to get it out.

In the end, you've gotten so used to saying it that it comes out on accident. Later, Pete will tell you that your tendency to overthink everything finally came back to bite you.

You're walking her out of Leena's. She's leaving for her first field mission since being shot, and you still feel like it's too soon.

"It's been more than six months," she's tells you. "Stop worrying. I'll be fine."

"Stop worrying," you mutter with a shake of your head, as if that's ever going to happen.

"I mean it," she tells you, turning to face you as she hits the bottom of the stairs. "I am just as capable now as I was before. If you ask me, Dr. Calder was too cautious. Where I'm from, I would have been back in the field as soon as the pain dulled to an ache."

"Where you're from, you would have been dead within the first twenty-four hours," you remind her.

"Probably," she admits. "All the more reason to get back to doing what I love as soon as I can."

"Just be careful, okay?" you tell her. You give her a quick kiss. "I love you."

You see her eyes go wide before you realize what you've said.

"Shit," you mutter. "I didn't want to tell you that like this. I was planning this whole thing. There was going to be a dinner and probably candles—"

She pulls you into another kiss, a deeper one. Your breathing is heavy when you finally separate.

"I wasn't sure—" she breaks off and looks away.

"Wasn't sure… what?" you ask, furrowing your brow.

"I worry that… when you say that, what you're really talking about is…" she sighs heavily, "some idea of me, and not…" she gestures at herself, "me."

"What do you mean?" you ask.

"When you think of H.G. Wells, you think of this person who created these worlds in her head, who built machines no one else was even dreaming of, who's books are still read more than a century later," she says.

"You did all those things," you point out. "You remind us all of that at least once a week."

"Yes," she says. "But more recently I've been the woman who left you to die in Egypt, who tried to kill you a second time, who nearly ended the world." She laughs darkly. "I'm afraid where I'm from, they would have called me hysterical. What's the current terminology?"

"Mentally ill," you answer.

"Yes, that," she replies. "It's not glamorous at all. It's messy. I worry that you're so caught up in the first part of me that you can't see the second."

You smile and shake your head.

"What?" she asks. "I'm failing to see the humor in this conversation."

"Two weeks ago, I was in Pete's room telling him I was afraid I wasn't good enough for you," you tell her. "I never imagined that the feeling could be mutual."

"How could—"

You stop her with another shake of your head. You pull her into a tight hug and feel her relax in your arms.

"I know who you are. I was there when you tried to kill me, remember?" You turn your head to kiss her neck. "When I say I love you, I mean all of you. That includes the messy parts."

She sighs and wipes at her eyes as she pulls away. "This case seems simple enough. I'll see you in a few days."

You smile and nod as she picks up her duffle bag and opens the front door. Steve is already waiting by the SUV. The screen slams shut behind her with a clatter.

You're lying in bed. It's dark, and you can feel the warmth of someone else's skin pressed against you.

"I love you, Myka," Helena whispers.

She climbs into the SUV as Steve waves at you. You wave back.


	11. Chapter 11

It's the first day above ninety this summer and you're starting to think about where you want to take Helena to mark a year from the day you kissed her on Leena's back porch when Artie sends the two of you to Eugene, Oregon.

Brad Peck is a linguistics graduate student at the University of Oregon, and he's having out-of-body experiences, or at least, that's what Artie calls them.

"I was out playing pool with some buddies, and then, all of a sudden, I was in somebody's living room," he tells you in the hallway outside his advanced phonology class. "And this woman I don't know was calling me honey, and telling me to pick her kid up from daycare, and then I was back in the bar, and Dan was snapping his fingers in front of my face."

Helena's eyes snap toward you as your mouth falls open.

"Yeah," Brad points to you. "It was like that."

Helena recovers first. "Right, Brad. Have you had any more of these… experiences?"

He shakes his head. "No, just the one."

"Have you gotten anything new lately?" she asks. "Maybe a family heirloom or something from a secondhand shop?"

Brad shakes his head. "I just moved here. The last thing I need is more stuff. I've been getting rid of stuff."

You shake your head. "Did you maybe touch anything you shouldn't have? Something that looked old or out of place?"

Brad shrugs. "The dead rat that was in my shower when I moved in."

You shudder. "Gross."

"Thank you, Brad," Helena says. "We shall contact you if we need anything further."

She guides you down the hallway and out of the building.

"Well, that was jarring," she says when you're on the sidewalk among the pine trees.

"It sounds exactly like me," you reply. "Can that be right? This has been going on for years." You'd almost given up on ever figuring out what exactly is happening to you.

"We shouldn't jump to conclusions," you add firmly, even though you just became ten times more invested in this case.

"Let us go talk to Mr. Peck's friends from the bar," Helena suggests. "Maybe one of them will be able to enlighten us as to the nature of this… episode."

* * *

Brad's friends are Daniel Gilman and Tyrell Wicks, and they're both first year law students.

"I thought he might be having a seizure," Daniel says. "My cousin has them sometimes. They…" he grimaces and shrugs, "kind of look like that?"

"It was only for a minute," Tyrell adds, "but it was weird. It was like he wasn't even in his body anymore. Completely unresponsive."

"What did you do before you went to the bar?" you ask, positioning your pen over your notepad.

"We met at my apartment," Dan answers, glancing over at Tyrell. "We had a pizza, cracked open a couple beers—"

Helena raises an eyebrow. "Before going to a bar?"

"It's more expensive at the bar," Tyrell explains. "Haven't you ever heard of pregaming?"

"Anyway, we were waiting for our buddy, Wade—he's in Brad's program," Dan continues. "What's his last name?" He glances over at Tyrell. "Huang. Wade Huang. But he was late, and then he texted us twenty minutes _after_ we were supposed to leave and told us he wasn't coming. Said he was feeling sick or some shit, so we left."

"And you went straight to the bar?" you ask.

"Yup," Dan answers. "Got there around 10:30."

You look down at your notes. "Did you see anything there that looked like it didn't belong? Maybe something that wasn't there last time you went?"

Dan shrugs and looks at Tyrell.

"They might have gotten a new dart board or something," Tyrell answers. "We didn't use it."

You sigh and turn to look at Helena.

"No, wait!" Tyrell says. "They had that poster!"

Dan nods enthusiastically. "Right, right, that _Back to the Future_ poster. Signed and everything. Brad made us take his picture with it."

Helena raises her eyebrows and looks over at you.

You shrug. "It's a lead."

* * *

"What in the world is _Back to the Future?_ " Helena asks as you pull into the bar's parking lot.

It's a small, refurbished, two-story house. The off-white siding is run down and looks like it could use a good pressure wash. There's a neon sign hanging in the window that says, OPEN, in purple letters.

"It's a movie about time travel," you explain. "From 1985. I loved it as a kid. It was one of the only videos we owned."

"And you think this… this film poster is the artifact?" Helena asks incredulously.

"It's a little on-the-nose," you admit. "A poster for a movie about time travel? There must be millions of those, and they're not all causing people to see into the future. Usually our artifacts are much more obviously powerful."

The inside of the bar is as dingy as the outside. Chairs are still stacked on tables like no one has been in all day. The bored-looking woman behind the bar is chewing gum and reading a book with a black cover. She doesn't look up when the door swings closed behind you.

"The pool table must be upstairs," you mutter to Helena.

The second floor is as cramped as the first floor and looks even more cluttered. The pool table is tucked into an alcove to the left of the stairs. The fit is so tight, you wonder how anyone actually has room to play. There are two dart boards, one considerably more beat up than the other.

"That looks brand new," you say as you pass it. "It's definitely not the artifact."

"Myka," Helena says from behind you.

When you turn, she's pointing to her right, where the poster hangs on the wall in a shiny silver frame next to a jukebox that looks like several buttons have fallen off and been reattached with duct tape.

"That's it," you reply. You cross the room to take a closer look. "Signed and everything." You skim your fingers across the glass. "It's in a frame though. I don't know how Brad would have touched it. And nothing seems off about it. It looks just like every other mass-produced poster I've seen."

"We agreed it was a weak lead," Helena reminds you.

"You were fantastic," she says as she throws her arm around Kate's shoulders. She's young, maybe ten. You're in a hallway painted the telltale off-white of a school, and there's a banner on a nearby wall congratulating the Dalton Elementary Dalmatians on a new school year.

"Yeah, Row, Row, Row You're Boat?" you add. "That sounded great. Did you have fun?"

"I don't think I like the trumpet," Kate answers glumly.

"Really?" you ask.

She sighs. "I'm not good at it."

"Well, you're still new," you tell her. "You'll get better. It took me years to get good at the oboe."

Helena pulls back, a smirk on her face. "You played the oboe?"

"I've mentioned that before." You wave your hand. "I'll tell you what. You stick with it through the end of sixth grade, and if you still don't like it, you can quit."

Helena is looking at you expectantly. You're surrounded by the fake-wood paneling of the bar. You sigh and shake your head. "It was nothing. We're back to square one again."

Helena checks her watch. "Let's talk about it over lunch," she suggests. "I saw an establishment on the way here that looked absolutely wretched."

"Umm…" you glance back at the poster. When you turn back to her, she's smirking at you.

"You'd like a picture with it, wouldn't you?"

"It's signed," you explain, already handing your phone to her.

You hear a small click. "Beautiful," she says, lowering the phone.

She's rolling her eyes when you lean in to kiss her.

You shove the phone back into your back pocket as you clamber down the stairs.

"Have fun up there?" the girl at the bar asks, still staring at her book as intently as ever.

"Um, that poster," you say as Helena heads out the door ahead of you. "Has it been out of its frame since it's been here?"

"Nope," the girl answers, popping the P. "It was like that when it was delivered. I hung it up myself."

"Thanks," you call over your shoulder as you push the door open. Helena is already waiting for you by the car.

* * *

Brad is standing in front of a glass case in the linguistics building when you find him. It's filled with mundane-looking objects: a pack of pens, an old, clunky set of headphones, and a diagram of something that looks like a circle with ink spatters along it and notes written on it in red pen.

When Brad turns to you, he looks tired.

"I saw my brother's funeral last night," he tells you. "He wasn't—he didn't even have any grey hair. You've got to have something."

You sigh. "Not yet. We went to the bar you were at, but we didn't find anything that seemed suspicious. You said you went straight there from…" you consult your notes, "Dan's apartment. Did you do anything earlier that day?"

"Yeah, uh," Brad leans against the glass case. "I played some basketball with my buddy, Wade, in the afternoon. He was supposed to come out with us, but he bailed."

"Your friends mentioned Wade," you recall. "They said he was sick?"

"Yeah, that's what he said." Brad shrugs. "He didn't seem sick earlier. Didn't really sound sick either. He just sounded kind of… freaked out."

"You can tell the difference over the telephone?" Helena asks, her brows raised.

"I've known him since second grade," he answers. "I know how whiny he sounds when he's sick."

"Okay." You pull out your notepad. "Can you give me an address where we can find Wade?"

* * *

When Wade opens the door, he's wearing a hoodie and sweatpants and holding a cold slice of pizza.

"Brad told me you might come."

He stands aside to give you and Helena room to step through the doorway.

All of the blinds are drawn. There's a beer pong table set up where the dining room should be. Empty cans and bottles sit on almost every surface.

"Party last night?" Helena asks.

"No," Wade answers. "They're from Kyle's birthday. My roommate. Well, one of them. Six of us live here."

"Hm," Helena puffs.

"So you guys are, what? FBI?" he asks.

"Secret Service," you tell him. "Do you know why we're here?"

"Brad said he was having some… hallucinations or something?" Wade answers. "Sounded fucked up."

He collapses onto a maroon couch with a number of brownish stains on the cushions. You and Helena sink into lawn chairs on the opposite side of the coffee table.

"Brad tells us you were supposed to join him at the bar the night his…" Helena glances over at you, "episodes began."

"Yeah, I was sick," Wade says. "Too much day drinking. You know how it is."

You're in a bathroom. There's a cool cloth in your hand, and you're pressing it against Kate's heaving shoulders as she leans over the toilet.

"This sucks," she moans.

"Yeah, it does," you agree. You look up at Helena leaning against the frame of the bathroom door. "Are you sure we shouldn't take her to the hospital?"

"It's a hangover," Helena answers. "She'll be fine."

Kate pushes a handful of hair away from her face. You lean away from her to reach toward the counter. Helena straightens up. She plucks a hairband off the edge of the sink and hands it to you. You gather what you can of Kate's hair into a ponytail. It's just a little too short.

"She's been like this for hours," you press. "I found her here at seven."

"She just had bloodwork done," Helena insists.

"Helena—"

"Fine," she sighs. "I'll call Dr. Swinton. And when she says we don't need to bring her in unless she still can't keep water down after twelve hours, you're going to let it go."

"Fine." You wave her off.

Kate is breathing heavily, spitting something into the toilet. You hand her a wad of toilet paper to wipe her mouth.

"You still think I'm going to die, don't you?"

"So, you didn't go to the bar because you were already inebriated," Helena is saying when you come back to Wade Huang's living room.

"Um…" you shake your head to clear it and look down at your notes. "Brad mentioned that he thought it was odd you were sick because the two of you played basketball together earlier that day," you say. "He said you sounded—the term he used was 'freaked out'—on the phone."

Wade shrugs. "Don't know what that was about. We played basketball in the morning. I came home. Kyle and Justin were here playing _Call of Duty_. They had out some of the jungle juice we made for Kyle's party. I wasn't about to turn that down."

"I see," you answer. "So there's nothing you can tell us about what might be going on with Brad? He said the two of you have known each other since elementary school."

"Yeah, but I don't know what to tell you," Wade says. "He was fine the last time I saw him. He's never had hallucinations before. Not that he ever told me about, anyway."

"Is there any reason he might not tell you?" you ask.

Wade shrugs. "I mean, I'm not sure that's the kind of thing you usually tell a lot of people."

* * *

You collapse on the bed when you get back to the motel. Helena sits down beside you. She runs her fingers over your hair.

"We're going to figure this out."

"How?"

You roll onto your stomach and bury your face in the pillow.

"Solving puzzles, saving the day, remember?" She says. You feel her lay down beside you. "We've been in tighter places than this. We're not even in mortal danger."

You turn your head to look at her. "That is true."

"We'll just have to take our time, go through everything we know, go back to every location and see if any of it feels familiar to you." She rests her hand on your back. "Don't worry. I'm quite certain the artifact isn't going anywhere."

"I just spent so long thinking I'd never know what was causing it," you tell her. "And now… it feels like it's right there, just out of my reach."

"I know that feeling," Helena says.

"You do?"

She nods. "It's how I feel every day about my life with Christina."

"Did I ever tell you about your sister?"

You're leaning against a different bed, one in a hospital room. Kate is sitting up in the bed. She looks about twelve or thirteen. You can tell from the expression on her face that she's bored out of her mind.

"You… have a sister," Helena tells her.

Kate rolls her eyes. "Be serious."

"I'm afraid I am," Helena says. "She… she died long before you were born, long before your mother and I even met. When I was still living in London."

Kate does not look convinced.

"How?" she asks.

"It was…" Helena trails off. She looks lost. You take her hand, and she smiles at you gratefully. "It was a burglary gone wrong. When she was eight. Best not to think about it."

"She was murdered?" Kate exclaims. "I can't believe we know someone who was murdered!"

Helena frowns, and you know you're going to have another conversation about whether she's really old enough to be watching daytime reruns of _Criminal Minds_ when you get home.

"Kate…" you sigh. "This is very difficult for your mother to talk about."

"Oh." She seems to deflate a little. "Sorry."

Helena shakes her head. "Quite alright. It seems you're feeling better, at least."

"What was her name?" Kate asks.

Helena looks away, takes a deep breath. "Her name was Christina. I had her when I was quite young, still a teenager." She turns back to Kate. "Use protection."

Kate wrinkles her nose. "Mama, gross!"

Helena looks back down at the quilt over Kate's bed. "My family was furious, naturally. I'm quite certain my parents were still angry about it when they died, but I wouldn't know. I was—we'd lost touch by then."

"Why haven't we ever been to the cemetery?" Kate asks. "My friend, Maddie, goes to see her mom at the cemetery four times a year."

Helena swallows. You think she might be holding back tears. You squeeze her hand, and she squeezes back.

"She's in a mausoleum in Paris, where she died," she explains. "I've been there a number of times. Your mother was there once. Maybe someday we'll go."

"To Paris?" Kate asks, her eyes widening. "Can we?"

She looks from Helena to you.

"Someday," you agree. "I think that would be good for all of us."

"Does it ever get easier?" you ask when you find yourself lying back on the bed in your motel room.

"Not for me, no," Helena answers. "But you find other things—other people—and it doesn't consume you the way it did at the beginning."

You reach over and take her hand.

"I love you."

She smiles back.

* * *

You arrive back on campus just after three in the morning. You're holding a cup of watery coffee you picked up at the twenty-four-hour gas station down the road from your motel. Helena seems perfectly alert. She jumped out of bed so quickly when the call came in that you're not sure she was ever actually asleep.

You wish she would go talk to someone.

"Why are we here?" you ask a harassed-looking campus security guard.

"I.D.?" he grunts.

You fish your badge out of your back pocket. Beside you, Helena does the same. He nods and takes you inside the linguistics building.

There's glass on the floor around the case you saw when you talked to Brad earlier. One of the plastic displays is empty, but you can't remember what was there.

"In here," the security guard mumbles. He unlocks a classroom and opens the door for you.

Brad and Wade are hunched at desks, one behind the other. Brad looks up when the door opens.

"Oh, it's you," he mutters.

"These two knuckleheads broke into the trophy case in the hallway," the security guard tells you. "We know you're here investigating them. The Dean had us call you."

"It's not them we're investigating," you say, but he's already closing the door behind you.

"What's this about, boys?" Helena asks. "Do either of you care to explain why we had to come all the way here at this ungodly hour?"

Wade shrugs.

"We broke into the trophy case to get the headphones," Brad answers.

"Was this some sort of prank?" you ask.

You walk over to the desk and study the headphones. They look heavy. The band is made of thick wire. They're certainly older than the headphones you got with your first Walkman on your seventh birthday. They look more like the ones your father used to listen to his books on tape in some of your earliest memories of him. You reach out and pick them up.

You feel like your mind is being split. There's a part of you that's standing in the kitchen in your mother's house, not yet high enough to reach the counter. Part of you is sitting on a bench with Helena watching the sunset, her wrinkled hand folded into yours. Part of you is back on the bed in the motel room, leaning over to kiss Helena goodnight. You're talking to your father. You're driving Kate to school. You're watching Sam die and meeting Pete for the first time. It's all happening at once.

"They're Dr. Banks' headphones," Wade is saying. His voice sounds like it's coming from miles away. "The ones she used with the… you know. We just wanted to try them on."

As the classroom spins back into focus, you feel like you might be sick. You brace yourself on the side of the desk.

"She's why we wanted be to linguists in the first place," Brad adds. "But by the time we got here…" he shrugs. "She doesn't teach anymore."

"I imagine you didn't expect to be caught," Helena says. "You must have had a plan. Something went wrong?"

"Wade grabbed them out of the case," Brad says. "But then he just kind of stood there with them; he wasn't putting them on or anything, so then I grabbed them, because, you know, I wanted a pic for Snapchat. But when I took them from him…" Brad hesitates. "I don't know, I just felt weird. Like I suddenly wasn't here anymore. Well, I was, but I was everywhere else too. I thought I was like, dying or something."

"Wade?" you look up at them. "Did you feel anything when you touched them?"

Wade shrugs and shakes his head. "Nope. Nothing."

You set the headphones back down on the desk.

"Bag those," you tell Helena. "Don't touch them without gloves."

"Myka?" Helena calls, but you're too busy leaving the room as quickly as you can without running to answer.

When you get into the hallway, you slide down onto the floor, head in your hands, and try to catch your breath.

* * *

"Myka, what's going on?"

You haven't spoken since you left the classroom. Helena's holding the bag with the headphones in it, guiding you toward the SUV with a hand on your back.

It takes you a moment to answer. You're not sure how to explain that you feel like your entire life since that first night Mrs. Frederic appeared in your apartment in Washington, DC, has been leading up to this moment.

"It was the headphones."

"What happened?"

She stops in front of the car but doesn't move to open the door.

"I don't know, when I picked them up…" you trail off, unsure how to word it. "It was like I was… like my entire life was happening at once. Like I could see anything that will ever happen to me if I just looked into the right room. My head has never felt so full."

Helena stares at you.

You chuckle halfheartedly. "I know."

"So you think anyone who touches these headphones starts seeing into their future?" she asks, lifting the bag in her hand to look at it.

You shrug. "Not everyone, I guess. Not Wade."

"And everything you've been experiencing for the past five years is because you just picked up these headphones in there?"

"Why though?" you ask. "Why would they affect me and Brad but not Wade? That doesn't make any sense. I mean, we've seen sentient artifacts before that chose who they would whammy, but none of them looked like this."

Helena lays a hand on your shoulder.

"I know who we can speak with," she tells you. "But I need you to drive." She presses the keys into your hand. "You'll recall that I do not have a license."


	12. Chapter 12

Louise Banks lives about a half an hour from the university, in a large, empty house on Fern Ridge Lake.

"You must be from the Warehouse," she says as soon as she opens the door. "I've been waiting for you."

"You were been expecting us," Helena replies, her eyebrows raised.

"Of course, of course," Louise answers. She steps away from the door to allow you inside and closes it behind you. "I heard about what happened to that boy. I figured it was only a matter of time until someone turned up on my doorstep. I was part of the decision to admit him, you know."

"Oh, you're still on the admissions committee?" you ask.

"It seems that the university just can't get enough of me," Louise says. "Can I get you anything to drink? Some lemonade, perhaps?"

"We're fine," you answer. "I read your book. You said the language was recovered from tablets found at the bottom of the Black Sea."

Louise shrugs. "Everything to do with the Heptapods was classified. It's still classified. There wasn't much else I could say."

"I'm sorry, the what?" Helena asks.

"Heptapods," Louise answers. "That was what we called them because of the…" she gestures with her hands, "seven legs."

"Anyway," you shake your head. "We just need to ask you a few questions about your headphones."

Louise nods. "The headphones, ah. I wondered what it was."

She sinks down at the long, wooden dining room table and gestures for you and Helena to do the same.

"You wondered what it was," you repeat as you take the seat across from her. "What do you mean?"

Louise sighs. "When Rebecca and Jack told me what their agency did… well, I had a feeling I might be creating an artifact. That's why when I donated my equipment to the university, I made them promise to keep it in a locked case and handle it with gloves. That Spike Gildea thought I was being awfully protective of a bunch of ballpoint pens. Of course, I knew someone was going to get their hands on it one day. Otherwise, why would you have come?"

"You knew we were coming here?" you ask. "Even before you heard about the exposure?"

Louise reaches across the table and touches your hand. "Dear, I've known you were coming here since before you were born."

"Then student who touched them claims he has seen into the future," Helena begins. You're grateful to her for shifting your train of thought back to the case.

"That's right," you add. "He says he's met his daughter and been to his brother's funeral."

"And his brother is still very much alive?" Louise asks like she already knows the answer.

You pull out your notepad and click your pen.

"Tell us about your headphones."

"Well, where should I start?" Louise leans back in her chair. "I got them back in 1962 so I could listen to my radio while my roommates were studying. Believe it or not, they were pretty cutting edge at the time. Later, I used them to listen to recordings of the Heptapods speaking while I learned their language."

"You learned their language from recordings?" you ask.

"Oh no, dear," Louise answers, shaking her head. "That would be impossible. I had to interact with them. Colonel Weber nearly passed me over for a colleague at Berkeley when I told him."

You have about a million more questions, but you remind yourself that you're here for a reason.

"Do you have any idea what might have caused the headphones to be imbibed with this specific effect?" you ask.

"Their language was non-temporal," Louise explains. "This is how I explained it to the Colonel and Ian." She pauses. "Think about writing a sentence starting from the beginning with your left hand and the end with your right at the same time. You'd have to know exactly how far apart to space your hands, and you'd also need to know exactly how the sentence was going to end. That's how their language works. They form the entire phrase at once, and their phrases are circular, physically. There was no defined start or end. You can start reading from wherever you want. Does that make sense?"

"Umm…" you glance over at Helena. She looks as lost as you feel. "Sort of. I guess I'm just having a hard time conceptualizing how that would work."

Louise chuckles. "I did too. But the funny thing about language is how our brains use it. Our perception of reality is dependent on the language we speak. The fact that the language the Heptapods use isn't rooted in time indicates that their reality isn't rooted in time either. Time might be a physical dimension for them, where each point exists all at once and they can travel between them at will, just as we get in a car and drive to the supermarket." She chuckles. "Ian was particularly excited about that revelation."

She smiles and shakes her head. She looks out the floor-length windows that line the back of the house for a moment. You can see the lake from here. The view is serene and gorgeous, but you can't imagine looking at it alone every day. You think this degree of solitude would crush you.

"As I started to learn the language, it altered my perception of reality too," she's telling you. "It rewire my experience with time to something… well, I don't imagine it's exactly how the Heptapods experience it, but it's similar."

"Wait, what?" you ask. "What does that mean?"

"I no longer experience time linearly," she says. "I'm sitting here talking to you, eighty-two years old, but I'm also playing with a tin pan on the floor of the kitchen while my mother cooks dinner, and I'm watching my daughter graduate from high school." She tilts her head to the side. "I understand if you can't believe that. The progression of time is such a constant for humans."

"Time hasn't been much of a given for either of us," Helena mutters quietly enough that you can barely hear it.

"So," you say. "You're saying that, because you were wearing the headphones while your brain was being rewired to experience time non-linearly, they may have absorbed some ability to alter linear progression of time for anyone?"

"That would be my guess," Louise answers. "But this is your area of expertise, not mine. You know, when we were at the site up in Montana, Rebecca told me once, she said, 'You watch what you do now, Louise. You may be creating something more powerful than anything I could even dream of.' Of course, I thought she was exaggerating at the time, but she wasn't so far off now, was she?"

* * *

"Let me use them."

Helena says it like she's been forcibly holding it in. You're not even all the way to the car yet.

"What?" you ask, even though you know the answer.

"Let me touch the headphones."

"Why?" you ask.

"If I can—" She closes her eyes, sighs. "If I'm no longer experiencing linear time, maybe… maybe I'll be with Christina again."

Your heart sinks. It's been so long since Helena has tried to do something like this, tried to bypass the laws of physics to see her daughter. You should have realized that drive was still there, lurking below the surface. Something like that doesn't just go away.

You shake your head as you unlock the door and climb into the driver's seat. "It doesn't work like that. I've never been back to the past."

"You haven't _yet_ ," Helena presses. "It's possible. Louise said she could do it."

"What Louise experiences is something different. It's not the same for me." You sigh. "And Helena…" You reach across the console to take her hand. "You don't want this. I've seen things that—" You break off, and you see her brow furrow. "I've seen things that have brought me so much joy, but I've also seen things I wish I hadn't. I know things I wish I didn't. It's not worth it."

She pulls her hand out of your reach. "You don't know that," she snaps. "You've never lost a child."

You almost tell her. You almost tell her that you've watched yourself lose one, but you bite it back. Instead, you turn the key and start down the long gravel driveway.

"You're right," you answer. "I don't… I don't know that you wouldn't ever see her if you used the artifact, but I know that once you touch those headphones, there's no going back." You pause as you turn the SUV onto the main road. "You can't turn it off. And maybe, _maybe_ , there's a chance you'll get a glimpse of Christina again, but…" you hesitate, "but you'll also spend the rest of your life mourning people you haven't even lost yet."

You glance over at her. You can't tell if she's listening.

"There's no way I can make sure you don't do it," you tell her. "I can't watch you twenty-four-seven, and I wouldn't even if I could. But promise me you'll think about it. Promise me you'll think it over really carefully before you do anything. I would never forgive myself if I let you make this decision on an impulse."

Helena is silent. When you glance over at her, she's staring out the window into the passing trees. You don't know if she heard you.

* * *

Your phone rings at seven the next morning. The call is coming from an unknown number. You expect it to be the Warehouse, but when you answer, the voice on the other end of the line is only vaguely familiar.

"Agent Bering?"

"Hello?" you repeat. "Who is this?"

A pause.

"It's Wade Huang."

"Oh, Wade." You climb out of bed and pull a sweatshirt on. "What's going on? Is Brad okay?"

You step outside the motel room and close the door quietly behind you. You know Helena hasn't slept much; she was still awake when you got up to use the bathroom at four, and she sounds like she might finally be asleep.

You worry about her with those headphones.

"Yeah, he's—well, I think he's fine," Wade answers. "I haven't talked to him since the night before last."

"So, umm…" you kick at a pebble on the sidewalk with your toe, "why are you calling?"

"Oh, I just, uh…" Wade hesitates. "I lied to you. The other night. And before that."

You furrow your brow. "Lied about what?"

"About not having the…" A pause, "the visions or whatever. I did. Just like Brad. Well, not _just_ like him, but probably… similar…"

"Oh," you say, surprised. "Why?"

Wade doesn't answer. "You touched them too."

"The headphones?" you ask. "Yeah, I did. I guess that explains why I've been disappearing to my future for the past five years."

"Yeah, look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Wade says. "I was just… I just wanted to pretend it wasn't happening."

"I know that feeling," you reply.

"It's just what I was seeing," Wade explains. "It didn't make sense, and then it did, and that just made it worse."

"I know _exactly_ that feeling," you answer.

"I'm at a club…" Wade tells you, "playing in a band—I play the guitar—and this woman comes up to me after the show, and she calls me, honey. I think she's my wife. She's beautiful. I don't know how I managed that."

"That's great," you say, because you're not sure what else to say. This conversation has taken an odd turn, and you're not sure where it's going.

"And she has this little girl with her, maybe five or six, and I bend down to pick her up, and that's when I realized what I'm wearing and that I have—I don't look the same. And the little girl calls me Mommy."

"Oh," you answer as your eyebrows shoot up towards your hairline.

"Yeah." You can hear Wade sigh on the other end of the line. "So I couldn't… I mean, I obviously couldn't go out with the guys and act like everything was the same. I don't know what to do."

"Oh, umm, okay." You run your hand over your hair and lean back against the building. "Listen, I, um, I didn't know I was gay until I had a—well, I call them flashforwards—and I was marrying a woman. And it was terrifying. I was completely at odds with how I saw myself, but when I really thought about it, it… it made sense. I was just afraid of what it meant."

"Yeah," Wade says.

"And… and at first I didn't want to tell anyone. I didn't for a long time, not even my best friend, who turned out to be great. Anyway…" You pause to take a breath. "Now I've found that woman and she's amazing, and even though I know my dad won't ever talk to me again once I tell him because I've seen that too, I also know I'll get through it and I'll have her and… I'll be okay. I know it's not quite the same as your situation…"

"Keep going."

"But the happiness you feel in those… those visions or… or flashforwards or memories or whatever you want to call them," you continue. "That happiness is real. You will be that happy someday. Some of that stuff, you just have to get through."

Wade takes a deep breath. "Okay."

"Is that… is that it?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Can I ask you a question?" you ask. "What made you decide to tell me? Of all people. I mean, we've only met twice."

A pause.

"I knew you'd be cool about it," she answers. "I've had this conversation with you before."

* * *

You leave a note for Helena telling her that you had to run an errand and that you'll bring breakfast when you come back, and you drive out to the house by the lake.

"There you are," Louise says when she opens the door. "There's coffee on in the kitchen."

"You knew I was coming?" you ask.

"Of course, I did," she answers. She turns and shuffles back down the hallway. She's wearing a bathrobe. It's still before eight.

"You touched the headphones," she says.

"Yeah," you answer. "Not on purpose. I didn't know they were an artifact. It definitely explains some things."

"I've been wondering, how does it work for you?" she asks as she pours two mugs of coffee.

"I just kind of… find myself places," you try to explain. She slides one of the mugs towards you. "It's always really sudden. It takes me a second to realize it's happening."

"So it's not at will?" she asks. "I suppose it makes sense that it would be less refined. I actually learned the language. You were just exposed to some aftereffects."

"I wanted to ask you about something," you tell her.

She nods. "I had a feeling you would."

"Have you ever seen anything… have you ever seen anything you didn't want to see?"

Louise chuckles. "Dear, I'm living my entire life all at once. I have seen many, many things that I didn't want to see."

"I have a daughter," you tell her. "Well, I don't right now, but I will. And she's sick. She… she dies. As a teenager."

Louise covers your hand with hers. "Oh, my dear, I am so sorry."

You nod, and you think about the cemetery, about Helena sitting at the kitchen table in yesterday's clothes, about that awful, serene doctor's office that you saw at the very beginning, and you know how you feel.

"It doesn't change anything," you tell her. "I've seen her. I've talked to her. I've argued with her. She's a real person to me, and it's not fair to deny her a life just because I touched a pair of headphones. And I love her. If she's never born, my life will always feel emptier, just for knowing who she could have been."

You pause, take a moment to breathe. Louise seems to know you're not finished, and she gives you the time you need.

"But my… my partn—my girlfriend, she's already lost a daughter. And she loves Kate. The way they click…" you shake your head, "I don't understand it. But I just don't know if it's fair to let her go into that not knowing. I don't know if I can be the one who makes the decision to put her through that again."

"You want to know if you should tell her before she decides to have a baby with you," Louise says. She leans toward you like she's telling you a secret. "Don't."

The answer comes so easily that it's jarring. She stirs some sugar into her coffee as if she just told you it was supposed to rain later.

"Why not?" you ask.

"If you care about her happiness, you'll let her enjoy the time she has," Louise answers. "Without all that hanging over her head."

The spoon clinks against the side of the mug as she lets it go to reach for a picture frame on the counter behind her. She hands it to you. It shows an elementary school-aged girl with blond pigtails. Her smile reveals two missing teeth, and she has a star and a crescent moon painted on her left cheek. You can tell by the clothes she's wearing and the quality of the picture that it was taken in the seventies.

"That was my daughter," Louise tells you. "Hannah. She died in 1993 in a rock climbing accident. She was twenty-five. She was always climbing on things as a child, and I knew. I knew before I even had her how it would end, but I let her do it anyway."

"I'm sorry," you say.

"I don't regret a second of it," she tells you. "And neither did my ex-husband. Every moment with her, every moment was worth it."

* * *

"I'm not going to use them," Helena tells you as you're driving the hour from Rapid City Regional Airport to the Warehouse.

"Good." You breath in a sigh of relief.

"It's not that I don't think it would be worth it," she continues. "I would do nearly anything to see Christina again. I think you know that."

You nod.

"It's that I don't think I could bear to see her only once," Helena explains. "I think if I knew it was possible, I would live my entire life trying to… trying to recreate experiences we had in the hopes that it would trigger a… well, a flashback, I suppose."

You don't want to tell her that it sounds exactly like something she would do, but it does.

"And I think, I've made progress coming to terms with… with her death, you know?" she says. "And having that possibility up in the air, that would negate everything. It would prevent me from living this new life that I've worked so hard to create."

You reach over and take her hand.

"And I did think about what you said," she adds. "About mourning people you haven't lost yet, and it occurs to me that I don't know what I would do if I found out that I outlive you. That would just be…" she shakes her head, "unacceptable. Frankly, I don't know how you manage it."

You shrug. "By trying to pretend I don't know, most of the time."

"And that's not something I could ever do," Helena says with a sense of conviction that tells you that if her decision wasn't final before, it is now.

"Are you sure you don't want to…" you hesitate. "I know you said you wouldn't see someone before," you say, "but will you please just give it some thought? I think it could really help you with the dwelling. And I know you don't sleep. We share a bed, so don't try to deny it."

"Myka," Helena sighs. "I can't even tell you how uninterested I am in sharing the intimate details of my thinking process with a complete stranger. Especially with them being what they are."

"It's not like it was in the nineteenth century," you promise her. "It's not just an excuse to lock people up anymore. It can work."

But you know her answer will be no before she even starts shaking her head. You know because you're still begging to see a therapist when both your hair is greying and the two of you are alone in a house that was meant for three.

You pull her hand towards you to kiss her knuckles.

"Besides…" she says, her voice more upbeat, "if I already knew everything that was going to happen, if there was no more mystery, I would no longer be excited about the future, and that would take a lot of the fun out of living, wouldn't it?"

You smile at her. "I love you."

"Oh, Myka…"

There's a long pause, and you're not really expecting her to finish. The thought doesn't bother you anymore. You remember what Pete said. You know how she feels. You have to let her get there in her own time.

But then she takes a deep breath and squeezes your hand.

"I'm afraid I love you too."

* * *

"The University of Wyoming." Pete claps Kate on the shoulder. "Well, it's not Ohio State, but at least it's got a Division I football team. We'll be able to catch a game when I visit."

You're standing in the entry way of a brick building. There's a bulletin board covered in flyers advertising tutoring sessions and piano lessons on your left and an office with a sign that says 100 – ADMIN on your right.

"Mom wouldn't let me apply to Ohio State," Kate mutters.

"We didn't want you too far away," you reply. You turn to Pete. "She's only been in remission fifteen months. We'd never be able to get to her if something happened." You squeeze her shoulder. "There's always grad school."

She's trying to look annoyed with you, but she's smiling. She's clasping yellow binder with a silhouette of a man on a bucking horse on it to her chest. _FRESHMAN ORIENTATION_ is written across the front in bold, brown letters.

"Remind me again why you're here, Pete?" Helena asks. She's smiling too. She's been smiling all day.

He jiggles Kate's shoulder. "I wasn't going to miss moving my favorite kiddo into college. Besides, I don't see you guys enough. The new caretaker's… woo." He sighs. "Getting him up to speed's like trying to sprint a marathon."

You cross your arms. "Pete, he's been at the Warehouse almost as long as you have. He was Claudia's partner for years."

"Don't remind me."

Helena wraps her arm around Kate's shoulders. "Come on. Let's have a look at the recreation center. I believe I read somewhere that they have batting cages."

"I was the star of my dorm's softball team my freshman year," Pete says as he hurries to catch up. "They called me Lat, the Bat."

"Was Bat short for Bat Boy?" you ask, falling in two steps behind him. He throws an elbow back at you, but you dodge it.

"I worked with Doug Ryan years ago at Colorado," Helena comments as you pass a sign that says DEPARTMENT HEADS across the top on your way out of the building. "I wonder if he still keeps that electric jack-o-lantern in his office. What a strange character." She turns to Kate. "Take a class with him, if you can."

Your eyes catch on the name directly below it.

JULIA HUANG-LOPEZ – LINGUISTICS

"I've been talking to Dr. Huang-Lopez, and I think I might switch to linguistics," Kate tells you.

"Is that right?" Helena asks.

You're sitting around your kitchen table eating brisket. Kate looks just a little older. Her hair is straightened. You've never seen it like that before. You miss it curly, but you've been through that phase more than once and you remember how you felt when Tracey teased you about it, so you keep your mouth shut.

"I thought you loved mechanical engineering," you say. "This isn't some post-breakup crisis, is it?"

"Mom!" Kate says. "No. Dr. Huang-Lopez just made it sound really cool. Her class is awesome. And she did her Ph.D. at the same school where Louise Banks taught. She met her once."

"Honey, you know we'll support whatever choice you make," you answer. "But do me a favor and take a second linguistics class before you change your major."

"Uncle Pete said to go for it," Kate tells you.

"Uncle Pete took six years to graduate because he changed his major five times," you answer. "I just want you to be sure."

"If you'd gone to Colorado and gotten free tuition, you would be free to take as many years as you'd like," Helena adds.

Kate rolls her eyes. "Mama, I can't go to college where you work. I'd never be able to do anything."

"I'd rather not think about what _that_ means," Helena replies.

"Myka, dear!" Helena calls back to you. Her arm is still wrapped around Kate's shoulders, and you realize you're falling behind. "How do you feel about eating in the recreation center? Every one I've ever been to sells the best smoothies on campus."

"A smoothie sounds great," you agree as you jog to catch up.

You wrap your arm around Kate's shoulders too, over top of Helena's. Kate isn't small enough anymore for you to smile at Helena over her head, so you squeeze her arm instead, near her elbow, and she squeezes yours back.

"I want in on this love fest too," Pete protests. He wraps his arms around Kate from behind and picks her up off the group.

She squeals with laughter and slaps at his arms. "Stop it!"

He sets her back down and claps his hands together. "I say after smoothies, we go check out that ice cream place we passed on the way here."

You roll your eyes. "You're impossible."

"I just think we need to make sure she knows all the hot dessert spots," he replies. "I didn't find out about the Graeter's down the road from OSU until my fifth year and I felt cheated. And who knows, it might even keep her away from the bars."

You ignore him.

"I think you're going to have a great time here," you say to Kate. "I know I'm excited."

"You're excited?" she asks. "Why?"

You shrug. "Just for you. About your future."


End file.
